LS 5903 MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE

BOOK REVIEW: ACCIDENTAL LOVE

A. Soto, Gary. ACCIDENTAL LOVE. New York: Harcourt, 2006. ISBN: 0152061134, 978-0152061135.

B. PLOT SUMMARY:

Marisa is a 14 year old Latino girl living in a lower middle class neighborhood who is prone to beating up boys and making poor grades. She begins her first romance by a chance meeting with Rene, a 13 year old who goes to a mostly white magnet school in an upper middle class part of town. Marisa is brave, strong, impulsive, volatile, and chubby. She routinely beats up boys to avenge her girlfriends and just to put her peers in their place. Rene is a small nerd who wears white socks and highwater pants that he pulls up above his waist. His manners are impecable. He is accepting where Marisa is always challenging. Rene is picked on and beat up. They are truly opposites. After meeting Rene, Marisa thinks she can do better in school if she attends his magnet school and she wants an excuse to see him daily. She realizes she is doing poorly in school but both she and her parents want her to be an academic success. She begs her mother to use her aunt's address and she enters Rene's school. As luck would have it Rene's mom dispises Marisa. She won't let Rene wear his new more hip clothes that Marisa picked out, she doesn't give permission for them to spend time together and she takes away his phone for any infraction of the rules regarding Marisa. Love blooms quickly as the two see each other each day at school. The happiness bubble is burst when Rene's mom tells the school that Marisa doesn't really live in the school district. Rene and Marisa are desperate and see each other and talk on the phone whenever they can. But miraculously just a few days after Marisa is forced to leave Rene's school she suggests that Rene talk to his father about the situation of his mom being mean and domineering towards Rene. Rene,who has never had much to do with his father, tells his dad about being separated from Marisa by his mother and the school system. His father finds bruises and scrathes all over Rene's arms and suggests Rene move in with he and his girlfriend who just happen to live in Marisa's school district. So things end happily ever after and truly seem to good to be true.


C. CRITICAL ANALYSIS (INCLUDING CULTURAL MARKERS)

Gary Soto has written a teeny bopper novel that is contrived and "Disneyesque". Everyone lives happily ever after despite all odds. There are few surprises in the storyline, still it is a hard to put down the book as the dialog and storyline move smoothly and are deftly handled. This is not a "Princess Diary" book, but almost. It is 50% Latino but yet it is something almost any preteen can relate too. It is definitely a girl book. The universal appeal I guess is a positive feature and it certainly seems like a realistic portrayal of Latino urban life.

Soto puts about 75% of the Spanish words used in the middle of the text in an easy to use glossary in the back with lots of white space. His characterization of Marisa seems authentic and he definitely has the insider perspective. Marisa is fond of food and Soto writes of Monday night as enchillada night, enjoying refried beans, Marisa worrying about her weight and deciding to stop eating pork rinds. The closeness of the family is portrayed by Marisa using her aunt's address and sleeping over a few times a week to be able to attend the upper middle class magnet school that Rene attends. Also in the fact that her mother has a cousin that she has not been close to or really visited in years, but still she drops off a handmade sweater she knitted with love for her at birthday time. Marisa's parents love her and want the best for her. Her father is surprised his daughter has a part in the class play of Romeo and Juliet although she has been at her new school for little more than a week and is not a good student. He is proud of her and says he will see the play with her mother's prodding. There is no typecasting in the book. Marisa and Rene are the main characters and they are fleshed out much better than the rest of the cast.

It is very unclear whether Rene is Caucasian or Latino. His language, values, family, nothing sends any signals. I think somehow that he is meant to be Latino, but his is such a homogenized upper middle class preteen that it is hard to tell. The things we find out about him are nationality neutral. Divorced parents, super intelligent chess playing nerds, shy kids, and young boys short in stature happen in all cultures.

The author uses the word gangster as cholo/a throughtout the book. It is a term Marisa uses towards neighbors and schoolmates that she doesn't like. She also worries that Rene's mom sees her as a gangster girl because she is from the wrong side of the tracks and does not have the material assets that Rene and the people in the school and neighborhood have. It is used much as my African American middle aged female friend refers to young girls that don't listen to their elders and fit her definitive of respectable as "so ghetto."

I was very surprised to see that School Library Journal recommended the book for 6-10th graders and Booklist for 7-10th graders. The reading level is 4th year or 5th year. It is classified in my extremely conservative library as a "teen" book, meaning grades 5-9. It certainly could be used as a high interest/low reading level and vocabulary selection but it is very easy reading with plenty of white space.

The story is a good and quick read. Most of the characters are Latino but it didn't feel like a Latino book to me. I think that is both a plus and a minus. Any young person could pick it up and read it and relate but there are positive and realistically negative depictions of Hispanic Americans in the story.

One of the things that rings very true to me is the fact that Marisa's former classmates think that Marisa believes she is better than them when she tries to get ahead in life by going to a better school. They hesitate to let her back into the fold when she first must return.


D. Review Excerpts

Booklist critiques, "Soto deepens this gentle romance between opposites with subtle, authentic glimpses of an uncertain world, where adults don't always provide protection and nurturing. With humor and insight, he creates memorable, likable characters in Marisa and Rene, who find support and love by valuing authenticity and sweetness over cool."

SLJ comments, "Soto deepens this gentle romance between opposites with subtle, authentic glimpses of an uncertain world, where adults don't always provide protection and nurturing. With humor and insight, he creates memorable, likable characters in Marisa and Rene, who find support and love by valuing authenticity and sweetness over cool."

Book reviews accessed at

http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Love-Gary-Soto/dp/0152061134/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7575722-4136600?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183685901&sr=1-1

E. CONNECTIONS

THE AFTERLIFE and HELP WANTED by Gary Soto. Motown and Didi by Walter Dean Myers.