I received this book from TBR and Beyond Tours / the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

😍 The illustrations! I love the style. More realistic, especially in the backgrounds.
😍 Seeing Ave go from grumpy and moody and uncertain to opening up. It was slow. It didn’t go BOOM. At times I was a bit frustrated with her, but I could also understand her frustrations. But we the reader saw the progress. We see her discovering this new place. We see her frustrations and see her struggle and try to get better. I loved when she started to use more and more English, get a bit more confident, and with the help of friends (and a dictionary later on) get even better. It made me smile to see her make friends and get closer to them. Find something that they all can do and enjoy. I was rooting for Ave to feel more happy and comfortable.
😍 While I wasn’t plucked away from a country I grew up in, I could definitely understand that Ave wasn’t happy. And that she was worried she would lose herself if she was going to be enjoying moments here. Or learning English as she wants to keep speaking Spanish/understanding Spanish, she could already see her brother was mostly going for English these days and she was worried. I was happy that eventually she could talk to her mom about it and that they really had a heart to heart about things.
😍 I loved that Ave was non-binary!
😍 It was so fun to see Cruz and Ave bond throughout the story. Especially since Ave feels a bit underappreciated by her mom and feels confused by everything that is going on at the moment. OK, at one point she had an argument (and I could relate what Ave did there) but they talked it out and I was so happy for them both.
😍 I loved that we got to see some past stuff along with how it is going with Cruz (the big sister) and the dad in Mexico.
😍 It also touches on other real issues. The wall. The border patrol. The problem moving. How Cruz and dad cannot move as they only have a Mexican passport, whereas Ray and Ave were born in the US and so can go there freely.
😍 Ray, the little brother, was a fun character. I loved how quickly he got used to everything. From finding a friend on the first day to learning more and more English rapidly, not even minding it was a bit jumbled, as he stated it was growing which I loved. To eating all the snacks he could find. And plus, also speaking up against how Cruz was talking. As if it was a bad thing that he was getting used to his new surroundings so easily.
😍 I loved that the text bubbles were different. Or I should say, the colours in them. Blue is when things are spoken in English. Black is Spanish. Especially with the brother it made the text even more interesting. The brother was weaving English in Spanish and vice versa.
😍 Loved the extra bit by the author at the end. With the inspiration for the story’s setting, some photographs and there illustrated counterparts.

🤔 Ave judging people because they don’t speak Spanish or don’t want to speak Spanish and wondering if they are really Mexican then. Um, girl. What? I am glad that she stopped doing that eventually.
🤔 I wasn’t sure how I felt about the mom. I get that she was angry for her kid to be just away for hours and not letting her know where to go. But to state that it is dangerous to go out alone? Um, your kid is 12? Almost 13 I would guess. Maybe this is a Mexican/American thing, but I was just allowed to be out and about. And I didn’t even have a phone. As long as I said where I was going on whereabouts I was it was fine. I spend entire afternoons with friends or alone roaming. There was a big playground thing around 20+ minute walk from home and I often visited in the summer.
🤔 I get we see things through Ave’s eyes so we are a bit biased, but I didn’t like how the mom wasn’t entirely honest about dad/sister and if they were coming along PLUS how she kept giving preferential treatment to the brother.

But despite those things, I did have a lot of fun reading this one, it was a great story with good characters. I liked seeing Ave grow. I would recommend this one!