Received from MsJoanna as a prize (surprise wish list book) from the Hearts & Flowers RAT 2016
Review This is a powerful book. I have read reviews and interviews of the author that have focused on the criminal justice system and the war on drugs and reviews that have focused on poverty and the difficulty of navigating our safety net. But to me on this Mothers’ Day the book is about motherhood.
The book is about Coco and Jessica, who each have 5 children by a number of different fathers starting in their teens and Milagros, who raises Jessica’s children while Jessica is in prison and the young mothers’ relationships with their own mothers—Lourdes and Foxy. And the oldest daughters, Serena and Mercedes as they become teens themselves. How do you feed, cloth, house, protect, educate and form family relationships in such challenging circumstances when your own role models have done so poorly themselves.
This is a “fly-on-the-Wall” book where the author was there many times and interviewed the families but does not appear in the narrative.

Left in the Little Free Library