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A review by maggiemaggio
The Secret Side of Empty by Maria E. Andreu
4.0
Before I get into my review I feel the need to tell you my own feelings on immigration issues/illegal immigrants so you’ll know where I’m coming from because personal opinion will figure heavily into this book. I grew up in a town with a lot of migrant workers from Mexico and Central and South America and I’ve always admired them and felt sympathetic towards them (especially seeing how terribly many people treat them). I don’t think the United States should open up our borders to anyone and everyone, but I do think there has to be some better solution for immigrants, especially for the children who were brought over here without a choice.
I’ve been on a role lately with political books that take some big, scary issue, like immigration (or Middle Eastern politics) and break it down to a personal level. The most pleasant surprise about The Secret Side of Empty was how much I liked and related to the main character, M.T.. By all outside appearances M.T. is just a normal 17-year-old girl. She does very well in school, she’s vice president of the National Honor Society, she plays soccer, she has a great best friend, and she’s interested in boys, if maybe a little inexperienced for her age. But M.T. has a big secret, she and her family are here illegally. Her parents came over from Argentina with her when she was young and have lived in the US illegally ever since.
Let’s talk about the “normal” parts of the story first. M.T. is definitely a girl I would have been happy to be friends with. She’s smart, she’s funny, and, probably due to her family’s circumstance, she’s wise beyond her years. M.T.’s relationship with her best friend Chelsea was great. It was a very supportive friendship and it was great to read about two friends who really cared about each other. M.T. and Chelsea do all the normal teenage things like drive around pointlessly, shop at the mall, and flirt with random guys. It’s during one of their pointless driving sessions that M.T. meets Nate, a cute boy who goes to the local public school (M.T. and Chelsea go to an all girl’s Catholic school). M.T. dating was adorable. She did things like Google how to be in a relationship and what to say to boys. Maybe that sounds silly, but it really worked in the book and went along with M.T.’s personality.
Then there’s the secret side of M.T.’s (I love how the word “empty” in the title kind of sounds like her name) life. Not only is her family here illegally, her father is also an abusive bully. When M.T.’s parents first came they had dreams of making money and moving back to Argentina to start a life there flush with American cash, but that didn’t happen. Now her father bounces from waiter job to waiter job barely making enough money to pay for the lentils they eat for most meals and her family is stuck in America, where they’re not supposed to be, but their only other option is going back to Argentina where there are no opportunities. Unfortunately M.T.’s beaten down father often takes his aggravation and disappointment out on M.T.’s face, something that was so painful to read about.
Throughout the book M.T. tries her hardest to make the best out of a difficult situation. She tries to protect her much younger brother even though his love of SpongeBob drives her crazy; she resents her mom for keeping them in this situation, but she still tries to help her in small ways; and she does things like tutor to make her own money. Still, M.T. can’t do things like get a driver’s license or go away to college and, about 60% of the way through the book, it all starts to wear her down and she has kind of a mental break. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying this, but it wasn’t the direction I expected the book to go. Going into the book I expected the story to be more about M.T. getting citizenship or M.T. getting deported, but the story was a lot quieter than that and a lot more about M.T.’s personal journey.
Before the breakdown part of the book I was really into the story, I thought it was perhaps a tad slow, but I was all in to the main character, the story, and the message of the book. Unfortunately, after the breakdown thing, I was less into the book. I want to say the breakdown came out of no where, but that’s not really true, it makes sense that someone handling everything M.T. is going through would eventually snap. It was just jarring that all of the sudden all of the things that were important to her–school, Chelsea, Nate–became so unimportant. There were even some more dramatic moments that, again, aren’t necessarily unbelievable given M.T.’s circumstances, but given the M.T. we knew in the first part of the book, seemed to come from left field.
By the end of the book I still liked M.T., the idea of the story, and the message of the book, but there was somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth because of how things were handled. There were also several storylines that were dropped, or randomly resolved, or dropped and then randomly resolved. The circumstances of the ending were great and fit into the story, I just wish the storytelling had been handled differently and that things would have been fleshed out more.
Bottom Line: Even though I struggled with the turn the story took and how things were resolved at the end of the book I would still absolutely recommend The Secret Side of Empty. The topic of immigration is so important and I loved how Maria E. Andreu told M.T.’s story by breaking down the huge issue of immigration to show how to affects one very smart, driven, normal girl. I don’t say much about schools and libraries, because what do I know about education, but this is a book I think all teens should be reading.
This review first appeared on my blog.
I’ve been on a role lately with political books that take some big, scary issue, like immigration (or Middle Eastern politics) and break it down to a personal level. The most pleasant surprise about The Secret Side of Empty was how much I liked and related to the main character, M.T.. By all outside appearances M.T. is just a normal 17-year-old girl. She does very well in school, she’s vice president of the National Honor Society, she plays soccer, she has a great best friend, and she’s interested in boys, if maybe a little inexperienced for her age. But M.T. has a big secret, she and her family are here illegally. Her parents came over from Argentina with her when she was young and have lived in the US illegally ever since.
Let’s talk about the “normal” parts of the story first. M.T. is definitely a girl I would have been happy to be friends with. She’s smart, she’s funny, and, probably due to her family’s circumstance, she’s wise beyond her years. M.T.’s relationship with her best friend Chelsea was great. It was a very supportive friendship and it was great to read about two friends who really cared about each other. M.T. and Chelsea do all the normal teenage things like drive around pointlessly, shop at the mall, and flirt with random guys. It’s during one of their pointless driving sessions that M.T. meets Nate, a cute boy who goes to the local public school (M.T. and Chelsea go to an all girl’s Catholic school). M.T. dating was adorable. She did things like Google how to be in a relationship and what to say to boys. Maybe that sounds silly, but it really worked in the book and went along with M.T.’s personality.
Then there’s the secret side of M.T.’s (I love how the word “empty” in the title kind of sounds like her name) life. Not only is her family here illegally, her father is also an abusive bully. When M.T.’s parents first came they had dreams of making money and moving back to Argentina to start a life there flush with American cash, but that didn’t happen. Now her father bounces from waiter job to waiter job barely making enough money to pay for the lentils they eat for most meals and her family is stuck in America, where they’re not supposed to be, but their only other option is going back to Argentina where there are no opportunities. Unfortunately M.T.’s beaten down father often takes his aggravation and disappointment out on M.T.’s face, something that was so painful to read about.
Throughout the book M.T. tries her hardest to make the best out of a difficult situation. She tries to protect her much younger brother even though his love of SpongeBob drives her crazy; she resents her mom for keeping them in this situation, but she still tries to help her in small ways; and she does things like tutor to make her own money. Still, M.T. can’t do things like get a driver’s license or go away to college and, about 60% of the way through the book, it all starts to wear her down and she has kind of a mental break. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying this, but it wasn’t the direction I expected the book to go. Going into the book I expected the story to be more about M.T. getting citizenship or M.T. getting deported, but the story was a lot quieter than that and a lot more about M.T.’s personal journey.
Before the breakdown part of the book I was really into the story, I thought it was perhaps a tad slow, but I was all in to the main character, the story, and the message of the book. Unfortunately, after the breakdown thing, I was less into the book. I want to say the breakdown came out of no where, but that’s not really true, it makes sense that someone handling everything M.T. is going through would eventually snap. It was just jarring that all of the sudden all of the things that were important to her–school, Chelsea, Nate–became so unimportant. There were even some more dramatic moments that, again, aren’t necessarily unbelievable given M.T.’s circumstances, but given the M.T. we knew in the first part of the book, seemed to come from left field.
By the end of the book I still liked M.T., the idea of the story, and the message of the book, but there was somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth because of how things were handled. There were also several storylines that were dropped, or randomly resolved, or dropped and then randomly resolved. The circumstances of the ending were great and fit into the story, I just wish the storytelling had been handled differently and that things would have been fleshed out more.
Bottom Line: Even though I struggled with the turn the story took and how things were resolved at the end of the book I would still absolutely recommend The Secret Side of Empty. The topic of immigration is so important and I loved how Maria E. Andreu told M.T.’s story by breaking down the huge issue of immigration to show how to affects one very smart, driven, normal girl. I don’t say much about schools and libraries, because what do I know about education, but this is a book I think all teens should be reading.
This review first appeared on my blog.