The Education of Margot Sanchez

Contemporary isn’t one of my favorite genres to read – I view it more as a palate cleanser between SFF reads – but 2017 is knocking it out of the park with its contemporary debuts. THE EDUCATION OF MARGOT SANCHEZ by Lilliam Rivera is a fast, enjoyable read. I devoured it rather quickly once I set aside time to finish the book. THE EDUCATION OF MARGOT SANCHEZ is a story of a girl learning from her mistakes. After she “borrows” her father’s credit card and charges $600 to it, she is forced to work in her family’s grocery store for the summer to pay off her debt. I loved reading Margot’s story, and I especially loved her character growth. This is a story about friendships too. Margot has drifted away from her childhood friend, Elizabeth, since they now go to different high schools. Margot’s two friends at her prep school, Serena and Camille, are rather stuck-up … and seem to be a bad influence on Margot, as they were the ones to convince her to “borrow” the credit card and get a whole new wardrobe. Margot’s story also revolves around her family life, especially with her overprotective, controlling big brother, Junior. I found myself being annoyed when Margot was when it came to Junior. And as Margot is a teenage girl, there are love interests – Nick, the boy from her prep school Somerset, and Moises, who she keeps running into outside her family’s grocery store. I liked Moises. Him and Margot hit it off right away, and I loved their scenes. THE EDUCATION OF MARGOT SANCHEZ is a story of a privileged Puerto Rican-American girl living in the Bronx. This story is written well, and Margot’s voice leaps off the page as if she is sitting next to you, telling you the story of her summer. If you love Latinx contemporary, I suggest picking up a copy of THE EDUCATION OF MARGOT SANCHEZ today.

The Education of Margot Sanchez was pretty dang cool okay. It starts out with this bratty little girl who thinks she’s too good for all these BS family “the more you know” teachable moments, but then she gets educated in multiple ways. She makes all these lists of all the things she thinks she knows or hates in the moment, but as she goes along through her journey, these lists evolve right along side her. Margot’s real journey begins because she’s trying to follow advice from her mother. She’s reminded of her mother’s own struggles coming to the US from Puerto Rico when she begins her high school career at a fancy rich private school. She’s immediately an outsider and she does everything to change herself— changes her physical appearance and her personality. I tend to shy away from stories like this because they irk me. I hate female characters who do this, but because the author writes in this part of Margot’s backstory as her justification instead of me having to read her going through it in the present, I could buckle down and get through it. For a long time, Margot sees no issue in this— which is part of her education. I love the way Lilliam Rivera writes Margot in this book. It feels authentic. She doesn’t automatically learn her lesson the first time. If you've read any of my previous reviews, you know I love a character that falls down a lot. I think any real reader does. I don't like the character that does everything right. Who can like a character like that? Rivera's Margot reminds me a lot of Zoraida Cordova's Alex in Labryinth Lost. She's a bit on the whiny annoying bratty teenager side, but it so fits her character. She doesn’t get it right or do the right thing every time. She’s real. And so are her relationships and friendships. I like the way the author brings out the real world issues just as clearly as she brings up the more intimate family and cultural issues. Gentrification comes up right along side machismo and gender roles. Rivera makes it clear in her text that YA readers can handle these mature topics just as easily as they can handle school yard crushes, fitting in, and broken hearts.

This book was adorable and I loved every minute reading its words. The characters were so personal, I loved the free flowing language no italics for Spanish, and it felt like I was there. I love books that engage you and leave you with a good feeling even if everything that can go wrong is going wrong in the story. I will also state that some things a universal, good parents and bad parents are something we can all relate too, honestly. Keeping your problems hidden and never letting the world see what is real, universal. Having a brother who is on drugs... universal. Even though it is set in the Bronx and I have nothing in common with any of the characters I understood her pain through pretty much the whole story. It is about a girl named Margot but everybody in her family life, and her neighborhood calls her Princesa and she hates it. She wants to be the girl who her rich white friends from her prep school think she is but honestly life doesn't work that way, we can only be who we are meant to be. So she goes through a lot of hardship having to work in her dads grocery store over the summer to pay for stealing his credit cards to impress the rich friends. She is missing out on a summer vacation and life in general. You go through her struggles with fitting in with Serena and Camilla the rich white friends, and also fitting in with Elizabeth her best friend before she started prep school. Feeling like you don't belong anywhere is a universal trait that I also think most girls have gone through in our lives, it can be suffocating sometimes. I understood her impulses to do bad, and I understood her anger at the backwards way her dad and brother acted. I honestly hated everything happening to her mother and I just wanted her to hug her and tell her it is okay but families are the hardest people to get through to sometimes. I enjoyed the love interest though small with Moises and how he was actually a good guy. I wanted her to be more open with him but a story has to have a plot. The ending though not all the way happy, made me happy. Life isn't perfect, it never will be and I enjoyed this story about everyday life from a not so perfect family. This book was an awesome read.

Easy read, great YA story, slice of life, coming of age tale of a real young woman in a real world.

Good book