10 Reasons Why We Love Erika L. Sánchez’s Debut Novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Before I give you a whole bunch of great reasons to pick up Erika L. Sanchez’s novel and read it until there is no more to read, let us pause for a moment to thank J.K. Rowling for writing about young but complex characters in tough situations 20 years ago, opening the door to a whole new breed of young adult literature, which treats our middle readers with same respect as it does adults.

Rowling’s wake has been the path for cult sagas like the Twilight and Hunger Games and for gems like R.J. Palacios’ Wonder. Sanchez is next in line with I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, a coming of age story with a sassy female protagonist. Here are 10 reasons why we’re still obsessed with this remarkable YA book.

2We See and Feel the Author’s Essence

We love the novel and its protagonist because we love Sanchez. Raised by undocumented immigrants, she found herself driven to excel and dreamed of becoming a writer. She is the recipient of numerous degrees (from the University of Illinois and University of New Mexico) fellowships and scholarships from prestigious programs, such as Bread Loaf and Fulbright. Currently, Sanchez is the Princeton Art Fellow. Her poetry and prose have been published in Guernica, diade, The Paris Review, and The New York Times Magazine, among many, but perhaps none more famous than her love and sex advice column for Cosmo Latina (2012-15). By the age of 35 and through a lot of hard work, she is living her dream.

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