From the award-winning author of The First Rule of Punk and Strange Birds, a dazzling novel about a young girl who collects the missing pieces of her origin story from the family of legendary luchadores she’s never met. Twelve-year-old Adela “Addie” Ramírez has a big decision to make when her stepfather proposes adoption. Addie loves Alex, the only father figure she’s ever known, but with a new half brother due in a few months and a big school theater performance on her mind, everything suddenly feels like it’s moving too fast. She has a million questions, and the first is about the young man in the photo she found hidden away in her mother’s things. Addie’s sleuthing takes her to a New Mexico ranch, and her world expands to include the legendary Bravos: Rosie and Pancho, her paternal grandparents and former professional wrestlers; Eva and Maggie, her older identical twin cousins who love to spar in and out of the ring; Uncle Mateo, whose lucha couture and advice are unmatched; and Manny, her biological father, who’s in the midst of a career comeback. As luchadores, the Bravos’s legacy is strong. But being part of a family is so much harder—it’s about showing up, taking off your mask, and working through challenges together.
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There is so much to unpack in this book. I think that this would be a great read for everyone but most especially for those children who find themselves in a similar situation as Adela. It would be a great group read for parents and children who find themselves in a similar situation. When a parent raises a child as a single parent, for whatever reasons, it's not easy. It's especially not easy when the other parent is not active in a child's life. The active parent has to always play chess. They don't want to talk ill of the other parent but don't want to the child to be potentially hurt. Eventually, children always figure out for themselves what's up and what's down and it hurts no matter how much you tried to save that child from the hurt.
This book speaks to familial loyalties, being manipulated into sacrificing your dreams for someone else's dreams, broken promises, found family, disappointments, and finding blessings within those disappointments. It speaks to nothing is as it seems and yet some things are exactly as they do seem. It speaks to acceptance and making life work within that acceptance.
Adela is incredibly smart and so very many topics were tackled in this book. She handled things better than all the adults.
All I can say is that Middle Grade killed it this year.
