It’s bad enough that Almudena has to spend the summer with a “father” she’s never met before. But she’s also being asked to help renovate a Brownstone he’s living in. Oh, and get this: The man doesn’t even speak English. Worst summer ever … until it isn’t.
Almudena didn’t ask for it, she doesn’t want it, but she’s getting it anyway: Her mom is flying off and leaving her with a strange man in a strange city.
Yeah, I know. Sounds sketchy, doesn’t it? But somehow her mom has rationalized the whole situation away.
You see, Mom has raised Almudena as a single parent for, like, 14 years now. And she has one last chance to try to become the professional dancer that she always wanted to be. So, why not ship her daughter off to meet the father she’s never known? Ugh!
Not only that, but the man (Xavier) can’t even speak English. Oh, and not only that, but this guy expects Almudena to spend her entire summer break renovating an old Brownstone into an apartment building. Double ugh!
After Mom jets off, they have to turn to “Dad’s” girlfriend, Idola, to translate his Spanish into something that Almudena can almost understand. Yeah, looks like she’ll be sleeping on the floor, working manual labor and having to rely on powdered mini-doughnuts—from the “White People” aisle in the local Bodega—as her only means of sustenance.
What did she do to deserve this?!
However, once Almudena dials her attitude back from fuming to merely irked, she starts to notice some things that she didn’t see when she first got here.
Xavier is a relatively nice guy for one thing. And he’s trying to connect with her. She also soon learns that her heritage is not Mexican as she thought, but Guatemalan. And believe it or not, there’s quite a bit of difference.
Before you know it, Almudena is also picking up some Spanish. Gradually, she realizes that she has some skill at tearing down plaster and putting in wood floors. And she’s meeting people in the community whom she kinda likes.
This may not have been the summer break she would have chosen. I mean, even a cloudy day at the beach beats being covered in plaster dust and spilled paint. But there’s something about these people and this place that’s growing on her.
She may even get a chance to, at some point, to find out why Xavier never showed up or why Almudena’s mom never said a thing about him? Or how about just a simple answer to … why?
That’s probably the most important word she can’t figure out how to say.
Idola and her sister, Lorena, ask Xavier and Almudena to join them and go to church. But Xavier refuses. Almudena thinks to herself that she’s never been much for church anyway …
… but later that Sunday, Xavier shows his daughter a homemade altar that he’s created in an upstairs room of the Brownstone. This altar holds a large crucifix, some candles and religious pictures. It also holds a small statue of a pagan deity: a smoking “bad man” whom Xavier makes tobacco or alcohol offerings to in exchange for wishes. We see Xavier offer the statue “two-fingers” of strong booze.
As Almudena listens and watches Xavier and his two-deity altar, she reasons to herself, “He doesn’t need to be told that these two things he chooses to worship are incongruent. To him, they pair to make something new. I get that. I am that.” And later, Almudena offers two cigarettes for a wish of her own.
Almudena has dreams of maybe having the traditional “happy family” that she’s always wanted. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, she connects with a community and an understanding of where she came from that goes beyond her white mom. And she learns about her Guatemalan heritage.
We also see the flawed nature of Almudena’s parents. They’re both loving in their own way, but they also both make selfish choices that the story seems to validate.
For instance, Xavier eventually explains that based on his own bad relationship with his father, he was afraid that he would have a poisonous influence on his infant daughter. He had nightmares about it. So, he ran away. And in her anger over being abandoned, Almudena’s mother refused to talk about him. In both cases, Almudena is the victim of her parents’ self-focused choices.
Almudena develops good relationships with people in the inner-city community where she’s staying. It’s rocky at first—especially since she speaks no Spanish—but eventually they rally around her and help her feel at home. They all become part of her extended family.
Almudena also becomes friends with two people who are ostracized by the community for sexual reasons (see below). And her friendship helps make them more welcome with people.
Profanity isn’t constant here, but we do encounter some uses of the f-word and uses of the words “a–hole,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is blended with “d–n” twice.
We also read about people drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes (though not Almudena). Xavier reports being quite drunk after leaving Almudena and her mother.
Almudena comes back to the Brownstone to find Xavier unconscious on the floor after falling off a ladder. He’s rushed to the hospital and ends up with what appears to be a broken wrist. He takes prescription pain pills.
The book doesn’t dwell on it, but it’s obvious that Almudena’s parents never married. We see them embrace and kiss in one flashback image. In fact, Xavier and the community around him appears very relaxed about out-of-wedlock sexuality.
However, the Guatemalan community isn’t as relaxed about gay lifestyles. Almudena openly embraces two people—her gay male cousin and a lesbian Bodega owner—as friends. And her connections with these friends help those two characters mend some past broken relationships.
None.
There’s a certain sweetness about Almudena’s summer story. She’s thrown into an almost impossible situation (thanks in great part to bad parental choices). But she comes out the other side of that experience with a better appreciation of who she is and a fuller understanding of love and family. This story explores the positive impact that a community and a family heritage can have on someone.
That said, there’s also quite a bit of rough-edged content for younger readers to wade through in this graphic novel. The language is coarse at times; there are discussions of sexuality (straight and LGBT); people smoke and drink heavily; and Almudena is exposed to the idea of Christo-Paganism (a blending of Christian and neopagan practices and beliefs).
All of those elements make for a story that demands caution on the part of any young person who’s reading it.
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Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not necessarily their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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