Author featured in a guest post about challenging gender stereotypes in KidLit on my blog:
https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/08/07/challenging-gender-stereotypes-in-di...

Absolutely chock-full of great themes -- ADHD, growing up, racism, deployment, reintegration, absence, Latinx family culture, redistricting, voting rights. A bunch of appealing characters, including a beautifully frustratingly protective family that struggles with their own internal feelings about Cuban heritage and how to get along in a white neighborhood in a town in Georgia. Really, there's
a ton of things to love here, but it is very slow paced. It centers on daily life, and delivers daily life with exhaustive detail. Emilia's mom is a away for 5 days, and it felt like I got to live every moment of those days in a 4 hour audio book. ( )

Emilia Torres has ADHD, which causes attention issues for her at school. The struggle gets more challenging when her mother leaves for a week-long business trip and at the same time her father returns from an 8-month deployment with the Marines and she finds her relationship with him awkward and strained. Throw in a well-meaning but overbearing grandmother, and things get stressful. Also, Emilia and her best friend, Gus, deal with the rippling repercussions of their town's plan to rezone the school districts and the racial issues this dredges up.
While I am a *huge* fan of the recent trend for more #ownvoices and broader diversity and representation in MG and YA books, this one doesn't work for me. There are *so* many Big Issues crammed in here (Emilia's ethnicity, her ADHD, her father's mental health post-deployment, the town redistricting, issues of class and race and acceptance at school,...) and all of them are battling for attention, that the book seems to be 10,000 After-School Specials all at once. Add to this the forced and clunky dialogue, which is just a half-step from "Oh. Look. A. Poor. Old. Hispanic. Man. Living. On. The. Poor. Side. Of. Town." "Yes. That's. Sad. And. Unfair." and you have a bit of an unfortunate mess. There are so many books out there now that are getting it right - representation across all the spectra, but well-written and not forced, and the best of them make that representation NBD - that you'd be best served giving this one a pass and seeking out better examples in the genre. ( )

Emilia Torres struggles sometimes in school as she deals with ADHD, but she can also highly focus like she does when working on her history project. Faced with her mom going out of town for business, her dad's return from the military, and struggles with her abuela, Emilia works to find her own way. Dealing with an issue in her town about school redistricting, Emilia works to embrace her Cuban heritage as she educates herself about immigration issues in her town and in the nation.
The friendship between Emilia and Gustavo was a supportive, creative one even as they went through some growing pains.
The audiobook was read by the author. The main character was based on his daughter and she wanted him to be the reader.
This book touched on lots of contemporary issues and had a spunky, determined, complex main character. ( )

Emilia Torres has a difficult time staying focused in school, she has ADHD. Emilia is surrounded by people who love and support her. This book highlights Emilia's journey with her day to day challenges. Things begin to get a little more challenging when Emilia's dad returns from deployment. I recommend this book because it is filled family and friend relationships that are so close-knit. It shows how important it is for family to stick together and be there one for the other. ( )