Dole, Mayra Lazara - Down to the Bone

[oyceter]

Laura Amores is kicked out of Catholic school when a nun finds a note sent to her from her girlfriend, Marlena. She's then kicked out of the house by her mother. She manages to find shelter with her best friend Soli, and she spends most of the book trying to figure out her sexuality and what communities she wants to belong to.

Like much of coming-of-age YA, the storyline is not the most original, but Lauri's voice is very lively, and I love how Dole populates her book with Latin@s of all kinds. And I really love that there is an important POC/POC interracial friendship (Soli is black)! Dole also includes genderqueer characters, a few mentions of drag queens, and transgendered characters, although the central conflict still revolves around Laura identifying as a lesbian or not.

Some of the conflicts are rather obvious for the genre—there's the encounter with the homophobe, the boyfriend, the non-accepting family—and Dole doesn't always deal with them in ways that make them more than their outlines. Lauri's voice also doesn't always work for me, but I suspect that's because I'm pretty far from being a Latina lesbian teen in Miami. Still, the book feels very now and very alive, and I really love the communities Dole portrays in the book.

I'm looking forward to what Dole does next; I think she has a good voice and would love to see her tackle less common storylines.

Copy won from Color Online. Many thanks!

Comments

[thehappynappybookseller.blogspot.com]

I read Down to the Bone, the year it came out and loved it. Since its been so long I can't break down the characters. But I still remember why I loved it. Lauri's new family. The author surrounds the main character with some wonderful fully developed characters. Characters readers can learn from, better understand or find pieces of themselves in. Though the author educates she never ever forgets the story. Sometimes authors have good intentions of teaching through fiction but the story gets lost amongst the facts.

And yes there are many YA stories about teens coming out. Though Down to the Bone is the only one featuring Latina's When you think about it there aren't many YA books with people of color coming out or girls for that matter. I work at a bookstore for the most part all the coming out stories I see coming in feature White male protagonist.

I've enjoyed reading this discussion and taking part. Thanks

[oyceter]

Yeah, apart from Alex Sanchez' books, I really haven't seen many YA books about coming out for POC. And his tend to focus more on the male experience. And one of my favorite things about this book was that it was almost all POC all the time, which I feel is still not as common in POC YA books, though it's getting more common.