Lobizona by Romina Garber

GoodReads Summary:
Some people ARE illegal.
Lobizonas do NOT exist.
Both of these statements are false.
Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who’s on the run from her father’s Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida.
Until Manu’s protective bubble is shattered.
Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past–a mysterious “Z” emblem—which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.
As Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it’s not just her U.S. residency that’s illegal…it’s her entire existence.
Review:
What a wild ride this story was. Thank you to NetGalley and Alexis Neuville with St. Martin’s Press for providing me this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
I completely fell in love with this story within the first chapter. Manu’s struggle of being undocumented in the U.S. was heartbreaking. It’s something that happens to people every single day in this country and it’s absolutely horrible. Manu struggles with this, but loves her mother and respects her mother’s wishes. I loved Manu’s relationship with her mother. They were very close, despite the secrets between them. I was a little sad we didn’t get to see them together after they were separated when ICE took Manu’s mother away. But their love for one another was so obvious, it warmed my heart.
After ICE takes Manu’s mother, Manu finds herself in a world that was supposed to only be a myth. She lies her way into a school for Septimus. After becoming roommates with the headmistress’s daughter, Cata. Cata’s best friend, Saysa, decides Manu is going to be in their friend group. Saysa’s brother, Tiago (who I couldn’t figure out for way too long if he was Saysa’s brother or Cata’s brother) is a part of that group too. He’s the alpha of the pack and takes Manu under his wing. This romance was clear from the start and I really didn’t care for it because at their school everyone knows that Tiago and Cata are end game (but we find out some things that made this untrue and made me okay with their relationship). Though things weren’t kittens and rainbows when Manu first arrived, the four of them developed and really solid relationship, and I absolutely loved it. I loved that Manu finally felt like she had found the place she belonged. Sadly, this didn’t last long before she learned that once again, she was something that wasn’t supposed to exist, wasn’t allowed. I really liked that this book point blank discussed that immigration issues within the U.S. but it also talks about the struggle within a fantastical world. The world of the Septimus is a backward one. Men are werewolves and women are witches, there’s no room for discussion of changing these gender roles what so ever. Those in charge of Septimus are very strict in their thinking and the last person that tried to change the ways of the Septimus was Manu’s father, who Manu believed to be dead until she heard the rumors at her new school. I really liked the full circle of Manu trying to become the change right where her father left off.
Many people had issues with the fantasy world, but I really loved it. I really loved the comparison to Harry Potter and that the author had Manu be a fierce lover of the story so that Manu made the comparisons before the reader could. I thought it was an interesting world, hidden within the world we know today.
Overall, this book was heartbreaking but also incredibly fun. The found family was so wonderful, but there were also strong family values and I loved those too. The conversation this story brings to the table is a hard one but a necessary one. I really hope that so many other people will enjoy this book as much as I did.

Quotes:

“Deep down, we would rather be dreaming than awake.”

“You’re the spark we’re been waiting for—if you ignite, we will fan your flames. Otherwise, you’ll be alone in the dark forever.”

“But why settle for being a son of the system, when you can be the mother of a movement?”

“Plant your new garden with seeds of equality, water it with tolerance and empathy, and warm it with the temperate heat of truth.”

Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.

Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday – Bookish Worlds

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.Each week we’re given a new prompt for a top ten list of all things bookish. This week’s topic is top ten bookish worlds I’d want to (or wouldn’t want to) live in. I like both of these, so this week I’m going to do five that I would want to live in and five that I wouldn’t want to live in. Here’s my top ten for this week!

Bookish worlds I would like to live in –

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas – Yes I know that they just went through a huge war and a ton of people died, but now all is hopefully well and I’d love to live here. I would love to get to visit all the different seasonal courts and the solar courts. I would also enjoy helping (or trying to) create a better world with the fae and the humans. Plus, who wouldn’t want to live in a world with Rhysand, Cassian and Aziel?

Harry Potter by J.K Rowling – Would I be a twenty something year old bookworm if I hadn’t read Harry Potter and fantasized about getting my letter and attending Hogwarts?

Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch – This is a world similar to ACOTAR with the different seasonal territories that I would love to visit. But in this book universe they have magical abilities instead of being Fae. So who wouldn’t want to have magic and be able to visit whatever season you wanted?

Zodiac by Romina Russell – One word: Space. I love outer space and most space themed books are ones that I’ll buy as soon as I know they take place among the stars. This book universe sounds so cool. The different zodiac planets with the different personalities, I just love everything about this series.

Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld – Superheros are yet another autobuy topic. So this book, while it’s set in a regular realistic world, it has kids with super powers. Yes, please?

Bookish worlds I would not want to live in –

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas – While I love these books and I love  the characters and the story, I wouldn’t want to live in this world. A world that’s on the brink of war and treats most of the people horribly. No thank you.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir – Living in this super oppressive world? No way. I wouldn’t survive in this book universe for very long and if I did, I would be very miserable.

Moon Chosen by P.C. Cast – I love this story and all of the characters in it. But I definitely wouldn’t want to live in this ruined futuristic world.

The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead – This book universe seems how I imagine England in the 1800s. I’ve always said that I would live in that time period, but only if I was a woman of wealth. The same goes for this world except I still don’t think I’d want to live there because well, electricity and running water and the internet and all of the modern day amenities I probably couldn’t live without.

The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima – This book universe is one that I wouldn’t want to live in for one reason that I could use for so many other series that I considered putting here. I wouldn’t want to live in a world that was in the middle of fighting a war. Even though by the end of the series the war is over, there’s always going to be another war in these kinds of worlds even if that story doesn’t get written. Yes, I would love to see this world and meet the characters that I love, but I wouldn’t want to have to constantly worry about the next battle to be fought.

This week’s topic was so fun I considered doing one post with worlds I would want to live in and a different post with worlds I wouldn’t want to live in, but I just did five of each here. What bookish world would you or wouldn’t you want to live in and why?

Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.

 

Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday – Best Character Names

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week we’re given a new prompt for a top ten list of all things bookish (feel free to put your own spin on it). This week is “Best Character Names (make this as narrow/broad as you’d like)”. Since this weekly post is something that is completely up to me and my opinion, I’m going to choose names that I liked or really stuck with me for one reason or another. This is also in no particular order.

Alaska – The main character of my favorite book Looking for Alaska by John Green. This name has always stuck with me, maybe because it’s my favorite book. But I think it’s more the story behind the name. Alaksa’s parents let her change her name once she reached a certain age and she chose Alaska because it means “that which the sea breaks against” and that’s just beautiful to me.

The A Court of Thorns and Roses Series – Every name in this series by Sarah J. Maas is one that I really liked. Again, this may be because this is one of my favorite series, but as you read through the books the names just keep getting more interesting. Our main character Feyre, her sisters (Nesta and Elaine), her two love interests, Tamlin and Rhysand. Theres not a single character in this book that doesn’t have an interesting name that’s stuck with me.

Celaena Sardothien – This is the main character from Sarah J. Maas’s other series, Throne of Glass. She’s a kick butt assassin who we later find out is someone who goes by another name (that I’m not going to say because I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read it) that is just as cool as the name we first know her by. There are other characters in this series with cool names, but Celaena’s is one that’s stuck with me.

Adrian sul’Han – From The Shattered Realms Series by Cinda Williams Chima. So I love all the names of the royal family in this series and the one before it, but I didn’t want to be a copy cat and steal one of the ones Antonia chose, so I’m doing the kids. I really like the way that royalty is named in this series, using the names of those that came before them.

Cass, Del and Nix – They’re from the first three series in the Dragon’s Gift Universe by Linsey Hall. Their full names are Cassiopeia, Delphine, and Pheonix. They named themselves after the stars and I just love that. They named themselves in their past when they escaped something horrible together with no memories of before, so they chose constellations. But we find out that they all chose the right names for themselves when the girls learn more about their pasts later in their lives.

Zeroes Series – By Scott Westerfeld. I had to have at least one “superhero” book on this list. I just really love the whole super hero trend going on. And this one is great because they’re a bunch of kids that try to do good and usually just mess things up. But they’ve got some cool and funny names.

Rhoma Grace – The main character of the Zodiac series by Romina Russell. I think she makes the list just because I really liked her as a character. Also this series is mostly in outer space and traveling among a few different planets and there are lots of cool and interesting space names throughout the whole series.

Lexi Jardine – Shadows of the Immortals series by Marina Finnlayson. This series really stuck with me. And interestingly enough for our main character, we have another situation where her name isn’t actually what she thinks her name is. Again, I won’t say what her name really is because I don’t want to spoil anything but it’s a plot twist for sure. I liked this character and all the others in this series some have basic names, but their characters are so much more than their names. Also, there’s a ton of different gods and goddesses from different cultures and I love stuff like that.

Mae Waylander – The White Hart Series by Sarah Dalton. Our main character, Mae Waylander, a peasant girl who has the name of a hero, I just hear her name and it gives me hero feels.

Aza – She’s our main character in Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. I just like this name. It’s interesting to me, just like who she is as a character.

These are my top ten “best” character names. Mostly they’re just names I liked enough to remember while I was making this list. What’s your top ten on this fine Tuesday evening?

Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.