The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes - Review

I bought this book back in April when I visited a children's and YA book shop in Retford when I was in the area with friends. My friend Sam had given us all a £10 book token so we all bought books, which was actually delightful. I got three books in total, I have already red Trigger by C G Moore but haven't read the third one yet. That's by Rainbow Rowell, I haven't read anything by her in forever!

I didn't like this book as much as I was hoping to, which was a shame. Maybe it just wasn't for me. That's fine! The main character is Yamilet, Yami to her friends, who lives in Arizona with her mum and her younger brother Cesar. Cesar is in the same school year as Yami, although he's a little bit younger. Their dad lives in Mexico - he was deported like six years ago and can't come back to the United States. Yami talks to him often but she misses him a lot. 

Yami is gay and used to have a crush on her best friend, Bianca. However, when she came out to Bianca, Bianca reacted badly and outed her to a couple of mutual friends. Meanwhile, Cesar was getting into lots of fights in school so he is moving to a Catholic school a longer drive away, on a scholarship. Yami also decides to go, mostly because then she can hide her sexuality, but also to keep an eye on her brother. She has to find a job in order to help pay for her tuition and help her mother out. She eventually starts to sell her mother's Mexican beaded jewellery and makes it herself, which I did think was a good storyline. 

At school she firstly meets three girls who turn out to be proper mean girls, and she soon distances herself from them. She is one of the only students of colour at the school, and she is much poorer than most of the other students. She meets Bo, who is Chinese, adopted by a white couple, and who is one of the only outwardly queer students at the school too. Yami soon develops a crush on her, but she is trying so hard to be straight at her new school! 

She thinks her religious mother won't accept her if she comes out, so she's determined to not let her mum know. But this drives a massive wedge between them, of course. Cesar gets detention straight away at the new school so Yami has to worry about him, too. She has a lot going on, and I did feel really sorry for her. But I also felt like Yami was a bit of a passive player in her own life. She lets other people ride over her wishes too much which annoyed me. I can't fully empathise with her plight around coming out to her parents, but I did like mostly what happened here. Cesar is a really interesting character and I would have liked more of his story but I also don't want to give spoilers as I'm really glad I didn't have any when I went into it. 

Overall, I'm giving this three out of five because I liked it well enough but I thought it had problems in parts, and I didn't love it. I would definitely read something else by the same author though. 

Sorry I haven't published anything her for ages, I was away on holiday and was a little bit behind in blogging before I went. I will catch up!