Don't Ask Me Where I'm From

Don't Ask Me Where I'm From
Jennifer De Leon
Atheneum/S&S, 2020 324 pages
Grades 8-12
Realistic Fiction

Debut novelist and long-time educator, De Leon presents a timely novel with lots to say. Liliana attends public school in the Jamaica Plains neighborhood of Boston, where she hangs out with her best friend, helps her mother with the housework and care of her two younger brothers, and stays out of trouble. Her mother does not need anything else to worry about. Dad has been missing in action for a while now and her mother is not taking the loss well. Where is he? Finally it is revealed that Dad has been deported and is trying to return to the US-with very little luck and lack of funds. Meanwhile, Liliana learns that she has been accepted into the METCO program, allowing her to bus to an affluent Boston Suburb to attend a well-funded school. It was Dad's dream for Liliana to get a good education, but fitting in at the new school is hard. The local kids are stand-offish and have preconceived notions about who Liliana is and the fellow METCO kids aren't bothering to get to know her until they know that she will be sticking around for a while. Friendship comes from unexpected places: her unlikely white host sister and a cute popular boy, who seems to have romantic inclinations. Will Liliana ever feel at home in her new school? Will Dad find a way to return to the US? What can one LatinX teenager do to change centuries of embedded discrimination?

I thought going into this book that it would be completely agenda-driven and dry. I was wrong. It turns out to be a really great story by a debut talented Own-Voices author. Le Leon leans on her years of experience to create the character of Liliana, a first-generation American bridging the gap between worlds and finding her voice and place with it. Liliana grows in maturity as the novel progresses from self-absorption to someone who recognizes problems in her world and does something to try to fix them. A wall is featured on the cover of the book and this serves as a metaphor for the many walls that Liliana must overcome in her life. Ironically, it is a wall that Liliana uses to take her first steps in making a difference. My favorite feature of this book is Liliana's voice. The character felt genuine and real. De Leon completely nails the voice and language of the character and even the slang rings true. I felt that the book ran a little long and took me a while to get through, but I was never bored reading it and truly came to care about the character. This is a family that readers will root for and a character that they will identify with, despite what may be cultural or economic differences.  Certainly timely, readers will read this book recreationally, yet walk away with a better understanding of others.