Review of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez

“I don’t know why I’ve always been like this, why the smallest things make me ache inside. There’s a poem I read once, titled ‘The World Is Too Much with Us,’ and I guess that is the best way to describe the feeling—the world is too much with me.”

— Erika L. Sanchez

*I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter* by Erika L. Sánchez (2017). Published by Knopf Books for Young Readers.

This is a book I have been meaning to read for a hot minute now, but procrastinated on for the longest time. I’ve been a fan of Erika L. Sanchez’s poetry and when I saw she was coming out with a novel, I knew immediately that I wanted to read it.

The title also intrigued me because there’s a common stereotype among immigrant kids that we have to be the one who makes it in the country our parents immigrated to, adding even more pressure throughout our lives. But we’re not perfect—so I wanted to come into this novel thinking about these concepts and how they add and detract from our lives.

One thing to note is that I am not a typical fan of young adult novels, especially romance, and I think that came into play with this novel. It’s an important coming-of-age Latina story that I think young people should read, but while I think it was well-written, I simply could not get into the book as a whole.

Onwards with the review then, shall we?

After the death of her sister, Julia looks to find out the truth about her sister’s life while navigating her own.

Our protagonist in this novel is Julia, who, at the start of the novel, is dealing with a death in the family. Her perfect older sister Olga, who was the textbook example of what a Mexican daughter should be, wasn’t looking when she was crossing the road.

She stepped off the bus and unfortunately, when crossing, was hit by another car, leaving her family to pick up the pieces of what she left behind. Julia doesn’t feel like she belongs in the family, and there’s some tension between her parents and her because (and what is confirmed later by a passive aggressive comment her mother makes when complaining about Julia’s activities) she thinks they compare her to Olga.

Julia is a high schooler that dreams of going away and studying English, specifically creative writing, while her sister, Olga, took classes at the local college and wasn’t finished at the time of her death.

We learn later that was a pretense—the vast majority of the novel is Julia tracking down what Olga was actually doing, and she discovers her sister was actually engaging in an affair with a doctor, and wasn’t actually going to school. Olga was not a perfect Mexican daughter either, but Julia doesn’t find that out until much later in the novel.

At the same time, Julia is suffering from her problems. She has these moments where she talks back to her parents, and flees into the city of Chicago while ditching school to try and deal with the anger towards her life and situations she finds herself in.

Eventually, she meets a boy named Connor and ends up falling in love with him, but they have their rocky moments, too. There’s friction there as well because of how he’s a wealthier white boy in the suburbs, while her family does not have money.

I will give a disclaimer; I am not Latina or have any origin or traces to Latin America what so ever. I do think the region is incredibly fascinating and try to read up on it whenever I can, though, and I appreciate the deep amounts of culture that found its way into this book. Culture forms identity, so whether Julia goes to get tacos when skipping school or the details about her mom, it all made me feel like I was immersed in the world she came from. I felt like I knew her little corner of Chicago and what she went through because of the details, which I commend the author for.

There is a portion of the novel where, after Julia tries to commit suicide, she ends up packing her bags and heading to Mexico for a bit. We leave behind her parents, who we learned are illegal immigrants that can’t return home to their native country, and then have an interlude of sorts abroad.

Julia’s summer there, and a brief fling, is cut short by violence in the Mexican town her family is from, forcing her relatives to send her home. Then, Julia must prepare to move to New York City, as she will attend college on a full scholarship there.

Overall Thoughts

There’s a lot of honesty and soul in I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, but I think my problem was, as I mentioned, that it ends up delving deep into the young adult territory. Sometimes inevitable considering these subject matters, but it simply was not was I was expecting.

There’s also some excellent representation for a young, poor Latina girl trying to make her dreams work while living in Chicago with immigrant parents, as well as with the mental health problems she faces throughout the book. Depression doesn’t make characters likable, and she surely wasn’t at some points.

The mystery elements keeps the plot going even when it should be at a standstill, and she feels like a real high schooler. It wasn’t my cup of tea, and I’m sure it’s someone else’s, so give it a chance if you seem interested in these plot lines.

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