The Distance Between Us
Reyna Grande
This memoir explores the challenges of growing up in a Mexican-American family, focusing on identity and family expectations.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
Young Adult
★★★★★5.0 (1)
A sharp, funny, and raw YA novel about a Chicago teen who must grieve her perfect older sister while living under her mother's relentless criticism and her own unanswered questions.
What It's About
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is narrated by Julia, a high school student whose older sister Olga has died suddenly. Julia has spent her life being the family's disappointment, the one who talks back and does not fit the role her Mexican American family expects of a daughter. Now that Olga is gone, her mother has turned her grief into a steady stream of criticism aimed at Julia, and Julia is left to grieve in a house where no one seems to notice she is hurting too.
Erika L. Sánchez writes in a direct, first-person voice that is wry, angry, and often very funny, even when the subject is painful. The book moves through everyday scenes of school, friendship, first romance, and family dinners, and the emotional weight builds through these small moments rather than through big set pieces. Julia's friendships and her relationship with Connor give the story warmth and tension, and they keep the narrative from becoming only a catalogue of hurt.
Reading it feels fast and personal. It is a page-turner built around a mystery about who Olga really was, but it is equally a story about a girl trying to figure out what she owes her family and what she owes herself. Expect honesty about class, gender, and cultural pressure, delivered without tidy resolutions.
Read this if you…
- Want a YA novel with a strong, sarcastic narrator and real emotional stakes
- Are interested in stories about cultural expectations and the pressure on daughters
- Enjoy a mystery woven into a story about family and grief
Skip it if you…
- Need a gentle, comforting book with a clear and hopeful resolution
- Prefer plot-driven thrillers over character-focused family drama
Key Ideas
- 1
Grief that is shared but not seen
Julia's loss is real, yet the people around her treat her as an extension of Olga's absence rather than as someone who is also broken. The novel shows how grief can make a family focus on one person's absence while overlooking another's pain, and how a surviving child can feel invisible in her own home.
- 2
The impossible standard of the good daughter
The book examines the expectations placed on Mexican American daughters: staying close to home, deferring to parents, and carrying the family's reputation. Sánchez treats these rules not as simple villains but as pressures that shape love, fear, and control within the household.
- 3
Questioning the myth of the perfect sibling
As Julia begins to suspect that Olga was more complicated than the family's story allows, she confronts how easily people build idealized versions of the dead. The theme asks whether a reputation can ever match the actual person, and what it costs the living to keep that version alive.
- 4
A distinctive, unfiltered teenage voice
Much of the book's pull comes from Julia's voice, which is sardonic, observant, and unapologetic about her anger and desires. The storytelling works because it lets a teen be messy and contradictory without the narrative stepping in to correct her.
Limitations
Some readers find Julia's anger and bluntness exhausting, and the mother's harshness can feel one-note at times. The book's mystery is more of an emotional thread than a tightly plotted puzzle, so readers looking for clever twists may be disappointed. Because it is a young adult novel, it touches on sexuality and romance in ways that some families or schools may want to discuss. Its portrait of Mexican American life is specific to one family's experience and should not be taken as representative of everyone.
Questions Readers Ask
- Is I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter a good pick for adults or only teens?
- Yes, many adult readers enjoy it. It is written for young adults, so the prose is accessible and the chapters move quickly. Adults who appreciate family drama and coming-of-age stories often find its emotional honesty rewarding, though the teen perspective may feel more immediate to younger readers.
- How does it compare to other books about Latina family life?
- It shares the sharp, family-centered focus of books like The House on Mango Street, but its tone is angrier and more contemporary. Readers who liked the intimate, observational style of Cisneros may find Sánchez's voice bolder and more confrontational, with a stronger plot tied to a mystery about a sibling.
- Is the book still relevant today?
- Its central themes of grief, family expectations, and the pressure on daughters remain widely recognized. Some details of teen life and technology reflect the time it was written, but the emotional concerns are timeless and continue to resonate with readers navigating similar family dynamics.
- Published
- 2017
- ISBN
- 9781524700485
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Young Adult
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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