Language: PG (7 swears 0 'f'); Mature Content: G (Adult drinking); Violence: G
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Lola's final grades for junior year have arrived, and to her dismay, her Spanish grade is a C. Not only do her parents (and Lola) dislike this in terms of academia, but it also hurts personally because her parents are both Mexican. Lola's father decides the best consequence for her disappointing grade is to send her to Mexico to live with her mother's family over the summer, and she can't come home until she's fluent in Spanish. The more she struggles to communicate and adapt to her family, the more she learns about the family curse. With flavors of Pride and Prejudice laced throughout, Lola must uncover who she is and how deeply family connections run.
¡Viva Lola Espinoza! doesn't apologize for its Latino roots and uses lots of Spanish without translations, so that made reading difficult for me who is not fluent in Spanish -- Spanish-speakers likely will enjoy that element. I found that the Pride and Prejudice elements were unnecessary and overloaded the storyline. Lola's growth and development were dependent on the men in her life a little too much. She didn't need them because she was strong enough on her own. The Darcy character's tendencies were unjustified to me, so I wasn't rooting for him and Lola to be together. I didn't love the males in the text overall: they seemed sexist to me. I think students would benefit from this text in terms of exposure to diversity and for students to feel seen, but otherwise it can borderline condone some harmful relationships in my opinion. Lola and her family are Latino. Her friend Anna is Latina and Lesbian.
Lisa J HS ELA Teacher
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