Cubanita (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Cubanita Karen Coats Triana, Gaby Cubanita. Rayo/HarperCollins, 2005195p Library ed. ISBN 0-06-056021-5$16.89 Trade ed. ISBN 0-06-056020-7$15.99 Ad Gr. 9-12 Isa is looking forward to getting away from Florida and her Cuba-loving mother in a few months when she will be heading to Michigan for college. Shedding one relationship, she isn't looking for another, but one finds her at the summer camp where she is teaching art—a sexy replacement activities coach at the camp comes on strongly and she is reduced to a knee-shaking puddle of goo, despite warnings from everyone around her that he is a player. Meanwhile, her mother is driving her crazy trying to get her to embrace her Cuban heritage, which she dismisses as embarrassing and slightly tacky. When her mother faces breast cancer, Isa realizes how much she loves her mother, stops being such a brat about her mother's obsession, and learns that being a Cubanita is something to celebrate. Oh, and the coach does turn out to be a player after all; Isa's sweet and theatrical revenge plot finds him locked outside on the balcony of a swank hotel in all of his considerable naked glory. There's certainly some light-hearted high spirits here, and the reading is undemanding. The narration and plot set-up, though, are rather flat and uninteresting; Isa's voice is authentically youngest-and-slightly-spoiled-girl-whiny, and her conflicts mainly consist in that she's too pretty for boys to resist and that her mother loves her too much. This fluffy and predictable romance achieves some slight depth as Isa comes to accept her parents' culture as her own; readers interested in diving into Cuban-American culture a few meters more deeply could look to Osa's Cuba 15 (BCCB 9/03) as well. Copyright © 2005 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois