Title: The Education of Margot SanchezAuthor: Lilliam Rivera
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published Date: February 21st 2017
Genre: YA, Contempory, Realistic Fiction,
Page Count:304
Format: Kindle
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★.5
Goodreads Summary:
Pretty in Pink comes to the South Bronx in this bold and romantic coming-of-age novel about dysfunctional families, good and bad choices, and finding the courage to question everything you ever thought you wanted—from debut author Lilliam Rivera.
Things/People Margot Hates:
Mami, for destroying her social life
Papi, for allowing Junior to become a Neanderthal
Junior, for becoming a Neanderthal
The supermarket
Everyone else
After “borrowing” her father’s credit card to finance a more stylish wardrobe, Margot Sanchez suddenly finds herself grounded. And by grounded, she means working as an indentured servant in her family’s struggling grocery store to pay off her debts.
With each order of deli meat she slices, Margot can feel her carefully cultivated prep school reputation slipping through her fingers, and she’s willing to do anything to get out of this punishment. Lie, cheat, and maybe even steal…
Margot’s invitation to the ultimate beach party is within reach and she has no intention of letting her family’s drama or Moises—the admittedly good looking but outspoken boy from the neighborhood—keep her from her goal.
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My Review:
"Basically. I'm the last saving grace for the Sanchez family. There's some unwritten family commandment that states that I will graduate from Somerset, attend an Ivy League school, and major in some moneymaking profession. The pressure is on to excel."
This is a book that deals with the pressures of fitting in with the 'cool kids' and living up to the expectations made by your family. It does both of those things in a very realistic, but also at times it appears to be privileged in way. Margot is a young woman who is going to private school and because of this is now trying to fit in with the popular crowd, but she always feels like shes floundering and she also has to do some things she shouldn't be doing in order to stay with them financially. When she gets caught for using her father's credit card for non emergency situations she is forced to work at the family supermarket in order to pay it off.
"Everyone in this house hides behind closed doors. We build fortresses to bar people from scaling the walls and getting in. But even with the amount of time we spend sheltering ourselves there's no way of concealing our problems."
For the majority of the book she appears to hate her whole family, and all of the workers at the store for multiple different reasons. She doesn't really make friends easily it appears which makes sense as she is the store owners daughter, but she is also extremely stand-offish and acts very privileged towards the other employees in the store.
"Any dreams I may have about my future is dictated by my family's hopes. The burden falls on me to lift up the Sanchez family but how can I do that?"
It wasn't until the actual last quart of the book that I found myself enjoy it. This is when Margot starts realizing things that had been going on around her, and how every cause has an effect. That certain things might not be there forever and that they way she's acting and what she's doing doesn't just affect her.
"I can see the domino effect if that were to happen. I complain about working there but the supermarket is my family's livelihood. How do you move forward without crushing others around you? I've never thought about how a new store can ruin another person's life. Our supermarkets are fixture in the community but what if the community becomes unrecognizable?"
Once she started realizing things Margot also started to notice things about her family and how everything wasn't always how it had seemed to be. She decides to take matter into her own hands about something with her brother, that leads her into stumbling upon something else that ends up breaking her heart and makes her question so many things.
"I want my life to rewind to two years ago when I cared less about impressing other people and more about having fun."
This is when I feel like we really see Margot start to grow-up and from then on she wasn't the same. Not just because of what she had found out, but because she realized certain things weren't important anymore and how instead she needs to be focusing on other things. I feel like I'm not doing this book justice with this review, but I honestly can't figure out a way to state how much I did enjoy the ending of this book without giving things away.
Margot is one of those characters that is going to stick with me for quite a while.
"You have to find what you love and do it." Jasmine says " Get it right, get it tight. Because these mocosos out here aren't going to help you. You got to help yourself. You know what I'm saying?"
Thank you to JellyBook and Simon &Scushter for an e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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