I had my eye on this one for a while because it’s not often you see a Cubanita in YA. This was a warm love letter to diaspora with such a sweet ending. For me it dragged throughout the middle and felt a bit muddled, with too many characters and not enough focus on the title story. The love interest also did not feel developed enough and I wish Rosa was a bit more fleshed out, but I still think this is an important book.

When I originally planned for this series of mini reviews, I had not read Don’t Date Rosa Santos. It doesn’t quite belong with this bunch because honestly, it is a sad book. It hit particularly close to home for me which had me actually bawling my eyeballs out but YEAH. ANYWAY. So Don’t Date Rosa Santos is sad and melancholic but it is also so sweet and so earnest.

The sea has taken a lot from Rosa’s family and left them fractured. Rosa doesn’t really know how to make her family whole again but she does know that she wants to go to Havana and see the homeland her grandmother left behind. To feel like she belongs somewhere and feel connected to her roots again.

Over the course of this book, Rosa navigates college apps, inherited trauma, what it means to be diasporic, and first love in the face of tragedy. Moreno has written an incredibly heartfelt book that transports you to a small, lively town in Florida. Honestly, I don’t know who could possibly hate this book. It’s beautiful and I wish I could stay submerged in its pages forever.

A fun, light read from an #ownvoices author, Don't Date Rosa Santos is about a girl who dreams of visiting Cuba, where her abuela is from. Cue cute sailor she's forbidden to love (thanks to an inherited curse) and a spring festival to save. Rosa's life just became a little chaotic.

Rosa, is, of course, our plucky main character. I love how capable she is, but she also has a big heart. Her love for her abuela and mother are very obvious as she tries to do so much for them. Even so, she's a go-getter--she knows what she wants and is willing to do whatever she can to chase after her dreams. She won't let some curse get in the way of everything. Her desire to go to Cuba is her driving force, and her journey was one I was very thrilled to go on with her. She is also hilarious. I could not stop laughing on my bus rides while I was reading this book.

Rosa's relationship with her mother and abuela are really fascinating. It is very messy and imperfect, but so are all family relationships. The tension Rosa felt between doing what she felt was right and pleasing her abuela felt very realistic, and it was very heart wrenching. And Rosa's struggle to be okay with her mother's wandering ways is just as hard.

This struggle is counterbalanced by the romance, which is So. Dang. Cute. When Alex first walked into the scene, I was like "Nuh-uh, Rosa." But he's a sailor. AND he bakes. Who is this guy? Rosa and Alex are just so cute together. Their competitive beginning was hilarious, and the way their feelings grew for each other...honestly I just melted. Gah!

There are a lot of other characters that I won't mention (and I mean A LOT). I admit to getting people mixed up every once in awhile, but it turned out all right. I felt like everyone added to the story in some way.

Because this book is very character-driven, I don't have a lot to say about the plot. I loved the way Cuba seemed to pull the story. It's a bit slower paced of a story, but I didn't feel bored at any point. It was well plotted and fun to see where Rosa and her crew ended up. The little subplots (see: golden turtle) are also just wonderful.

I have personally never been to Florida, but now I want to go so badly. Nina Moreno wrote this story in a way that made Florida come alive for me. It was beautiful and lush. I could feel spring turning into summer. I want to go to Port Coral soooo bad. The way she wrote in the culture of this place was not only skin deep. It was everywhere, from the people who lived there, the festivals, the music, the food (I just wanted to eat everything in this book!).

This is a perfect spring/summer read. It's atmospheric, has incredible characters, and a fun plot. Rosa was so much fun to read about--I very much enjoyed her journey. This author's love letter to Cuba had me wanting more. I will happily read more from this author.

A lovely story about a small town coming together to stop gentrification by hosting a festival showing and selling their crafts. It does have a death scene and deals with how painful one can be and how it can make you feel like something’s missing or you’re lost.

Rosa Santos is cursed: Every sailor her family falls in love with have died by the sea. Her grandfather and her father were the first victims, and now she’s scared of doing the same with the boy she has a crush on.

Rosa is a very relatable character for me. She’s very intelligent and works very hard, getting her two-year degree at the same time she’s getting her high school diploma and working at the local bodega. She is Cuban but because she has grown up in America and her grandmother does not talk about her life or family in Cuba, she feels disconnected with that culture and wants to learn about it, going so far as to apply to a university that has a study abroad program in Havana and major in Latin American Studies. She doesn’t quite know where she fits in.

She loves helping others and was the one that came up with the idea to host the festival to save the town. What I find really relatable about her is that when her plans for the future did not pan out, she was sort of stuck in a limbo and didn’t know what to do with the rest of her life. She’s also passionate about sustainability 

Rosa has a very complicated relationship with her mother and currently lives with her grandmother. Because of the superstitions and family curse, her mother does not feel like she belongs in Port Coral. She only comes back to be with her daughter in between her painting commissions. She wants what’s best for her daughter and does not believe going to Cuba just to see what it’s like is the best choice. Change can be scary and not all of it is good or accepted by your family, but sometimes it’s needed.

This novel also talks about how college is expected, especially for some immigrant families, and talks about how it’s not for everyone. In one scene, a father gets upset at his son for dropping out and he gets reminded that his job should be to support his children no matter what they choose to do with their lives.

It also touches on the political climate in Cuba and how dangerous it was for some people and how scared her grandmother was to stay there. She left to a land where she couldn’t speak the language just so her family has a chance to be free, but it also talks about how beautiful Cuba is and how happy it makes Rosa and her mother to be there for Mimi.

I received an ARC from Netgalley and Disney-Hyperion in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved this book. It checked all of the boxes for me. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it taught me more about a culture that is not my own. The only thing that I struggled with reading this books was that they speak spa ish often and as someone who does not speak Spanish it made those parts of the book hard to understand. But that is my own problem and not the books fault.

This was a pretty average book! It’s a great contemporary to read by the pool or beach during the summer. 

My main issue was the plot and the pacing of the story. For the first 50% of this book nothing happens and it was honestly a struggle for me to get through it. Towards the end things start to get interesting and it was able to hold my attention. The writing also took me a little while to get used to. I like how Spanish was incorporated but I was confused at times and felt like I was missing a major plot point. In the summary this was pitched as a romance but I felt like there was very little and it was a bit underwhelming. I also didn’t really get the “curse”.

Overall, a good book. It’s also diverse which I of course appreciate.

Oh goodness, where to start? 

This book was so cute and is the perfect summer beach read. Honestly, it would be so easy to devour on a nice weekend! There were so many wonderful elements between the romance, the family dynamic, the town, and so on that made the book great. Rosa Santos was an interesting main character who was fun to follow along. I felt that she was really well written! Each supporting character added a lot to the story and really helped keep the reader engaged. There were two who stood out to me most -- Rosa's abuela and Alex. Alex sounded like a total heartthrob and Rosa's abuela was just amazing. 

Plus, I felt that I was able to learn a lot about the Latinx culture as well as Cuba! It was definitely an eye-opener to a lot of things. This book definitely makes me excited to read more by Nina Moreno.

Rosa is trying to figure out her future. We begin the story in April of her senior year of high school, and boy, is she busy! She’s finishing a dual-enrollment degree at the local community college, plus deciding where she wants to go for her next step in school, plus trying to figure out how to tell her Mimi (her grandmother) that she wants to study abroad in Cuba, plus she gets roped into planning a spring festival to save her town in, like, chapter three. Whew! Let’s take a breather.

But here’s the awesome thing about Rosa. She’s real. She’s one of the most realistic protagonists I’ve ever read in YA. She’s a fantastic planner, a great leader, a juggler of responsibilities, and a total overachiever. She’s also a huge klutz, a little bit of a perfectionist, and tends to shy away from important conversations for the sake of not creating stress for other people.

On the more serious side, she harbors some very real fears and concerns about her family and her future. She’s confused about her family’s “curse” and wants to know the truth about Cuba and why her Mimi refuses to speak of the island that was once her home. She’s downright petrified of the sea, but once Alex comes into the picture, that fear evolves into something else.

A word on the romance between Rosa and Alex… no spoilers, obviously, but it was super well-done. They begin as reluctant cooperators because of the festival in their town, and they blossom into more, and more… it’s soft and wonderful and it makes you root for them. They confront parts of each other that need growth. And yes, there are your fair share of swoonworthy and/or hilarious rom-com scenes. Rosa with a crush is hilarious, because at her heart she’s really a bit awkward, and that is awesome and amazing, and she cringes at herself so much, and it’s just… realistic. It’s funny! And it’s realistic. I love reading about girls who feel like real girls— not manic pixie dream girls. YA needs more girls like Rosa Santos.

I would be remiss not to write about the setting in this review as well. Port Coral is a fictional Florida town, in the Miami area. I can’t remember the last time I read a YA contemporary in which the setting felt so intricate to the plot, almost as if it was a character of its own. This is atmospheric and beautiful— from the planning of the spring festival to the places Rosa frequents around town to the people and the businesses/roles they uphold, everything about Port Coral is so distinctly Port Coral. I admire and adore the obvious attention Moreno has paid to making this setting so very important to the story.

There’s a second, less present setting at play here as well— Cuba. I can’t disclose Rosa's path with regard to Cuba, because to touch on that would be moving into spoiler territory, but from page one, Rosa is adamant that she must learn more about her Mimi’s home island. Even without speaking of Cuba, Mimi’s household is steeped in Caribbean and Cuban culture— from her herbal remedy practices to her cooking to her old music, Cuba is everywhere. The only thing missing is the sea. It’s so easy to understand how Rosa feels caught between worlds— she’s simultaneously living in two of them, and they’re both so vivid and omnipresent.

Nina Moreno is incredibly gifted with prose. From poignant lines of dialogue to vivid, evocative setting descriptions to eloquence from Rosa’s internal monologue, the writing is beautiful.

Everything about this story is beautiful, actually— it’s a message about family and love and culture and loss, wrapped up in this small Florida town with a wonderful protagonist to tell us about it.

Thank you very much for providing me with an ARC of Don’t Date Rosa Santos! 

As attached, you can read my review I’ve posted to my Goodreads! 

This book was equal parts a cute summer contemporary book and a heartbreaking story about wanting that perfect family bond and wading through the tough waters that life sometimes drowns you in.  

I really appreciated the POC and LGTBQ+ representation in here. I also really liked how Rosa was determined to go to Cuba. She wanted to learn more about her history and learn to speak Spanish better which was pretty cool. 

This story was rich with culture and atmosphere. I really liked Nina Moreno’s writing style and especially her dialogue. It was both witty and poetic. 

While I did really enjoy this story, there was just something about it that I didn’t full connect to. I can’t quite place it, but I wanted to love it more than I did. Regardless, this story was beautifully heartbreaking and I know there will be lots of people who this story will speak to and secure a place in their hearts for a long time to come. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t one of those people. However, I will read any future books from Nina Moreno! 

Thanks again for providing me with an ARC!

I really enjoyed this book. There were so many aspects of this book that I loved I don't really know what all to say. The romance was addictive. The family aspects of this book were also amazing.

3.5 stars

The women in Rosa Santo's family are cursed to love them and lose them tragically to the sea. Rosa is determined that she's not going to be the next to doom a poor boy—she has her heart set on graduating high school, studying abroad in Cuba and returning home, both to the one in her soul and the one in her heritage. Until the Spring Festival, a wedding and a very cute boy with tattoos messes up all her plans.

This started off at a solid five star read and then fell apart with a bloated, meandering middle. While it wrapped up nicely in the end, I felt like it could have been a touch more streamlined and focused to keep moving along. Parts I wanted to read more about where omitted or only told about (like how Type A and organized Rosa is—constantly told this, only had glimpses of showing) and more of the festival and the wedding and the people. 

Instead there was a lot of repetitions over Alex, the boy with the man beard and the tattoos, and a forced chemistry that just wasn't there for me? Plus, dude is like 19-20, just dropped out of college and has a million life experiences (and is a master baker and a master sailor and a master environmentalist and apparently also good at wedding planning?) and Rosa is 17 and hasn't left her home island in years. This age gap was mentioned but never really addressed and it just made me feel weird.

Anywho.

Things I loved, because there is a lot to love in this story:

1. Casual bisexuality. It gets swallowed up by Alex-Alex-Alex, but it's there
2. Cuba and the constant tug-of-war of Cuban immigrants trying to connect to their home while remaining frustrated with the current political climates both in the US and in Cuba. And also the struggle of first generation Cuban-Americans and their own tug-of-war struggles with their parents' sacrifice, their own dreams and their identity and sense of existing in two places but not enough to truly belong to either.
3. Diversity rep!
4. LGBT rep!
5. Port Coral itself—the Florida Key filled with mystery, atmosphere, brujeria. Bright, sunny, bilingual, welcoming and just small town perfection. In some ways the town reminded me of Sparrow, Oregon from The Wicked Deep with its broody magic and isolated community.
6. Generational relationships, both with Rosa and her family and with the town. I adored the constant blogging and snooping of the viejitos and their being "hip with the tech times." I wished they had more characterization instead of being nosy paparazzi.
7. The struggle of making your first life-changing decision and the impossible pressure placed on teens to do it all and excel at everything.
8. Ms. Peña and her combined abilities to whip up a Spring Festival with two weeks' notice and keep her cool when the credit goes to a 17 year old who spends the entire book delivering bread on a bike she can't ride to a cursed marina with a boy-sailor-chef she's forbidden to love.

Overall impressions—this is a cute YA contemporary romance filled with heart, magical realism, family relationships and Cuban-American rep that starts to lose focus midway through due to a plethora of side-plots, characters and forced romance.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

I remember hearing a lot of buzz about this book months ago.  When it showed up on my library's website I made sure to request it, when I saw it at NetGalley I requested it and hoped I would be approved and smiled when I was.  This book is definitely worth the buzz it got.

At first glance it comes off as a YA coming of age type of book, but it was so much more.  It's a book about 3 women, all related, hiding so much from each other, but none of them seemed to know why, but it was just the way of their family.  Towards the end Mimi reaches out and starts to talk, which leads to a magical night of discovery after a magical day for the town.  

You would think that only good things could happen from here, sadly that isn't what happened.  I found myself holding my breath, hoping, praying what I could see coming wouldn't.  After a few lost days Rosa finally figured out what needed to happen and put her plan in place.  This ended up being the perfect thing, bring about some more magic.  What should have been a trip filled with sadness and melancholy ended up one of love, trust and hope.  

As the book ended I was happy for Rosa, while her life changed greatly, she found as much as she lost and has a good place to launch her future, which looks to be bright.

OMG. This book is EVERYTHING. I cannot begin to stress how impactful, beautiful, and important this books is. If there were more stars to give it, I would, because 5 does not seem like enough.

Rarely do we see a book with such rich and beautiful representation. Nina Moreno's writing jumps off the page. You can smell the ocean, feel the heat of the sun, taste the pastelitos, hear the music. 

This book is about family, friendship, love, culture, trying to find your way when you have your two feet in two different worlds. Never has a book spoken to me as deeply as this one did. I was born in a different country, and raised between this one and another. Always feeling a sense of otherness, not quite fitting in, neither here nor there. This book takes all of those feelings and in a way, it makes sense of them. The feeling of not being "enough" is something most (if not all) immigrants and immigrant children can relate to. Not enough of this culture or that one. Not brown enough, not white enough. The feelings of needing to succeed, to do even BETTER than succeed, so that it will all be worth it. The weight of the dreams you carry on your shoulders. They're not just your dreams, but your family's as well. 

And it honestly doesn't matter if your family arrived by boat, by plane, by golden helicopter, or magical unicorn. It's the same damn feeling. My experience was so different from Rosa's, and yet in so many ways, it was exactly the same. 

I've heard this book be compared to Gilmore Girls, To All The Boys I've Loved, and Practical Magic. I can certainly see the comparisons. And yet... I felt this book was so much more.

Rosa Santos is a strong, fierce, determined, and beautifully flawed and pained young woman. You will fall in love with her. You will come to love yourself a little bit more, though her. 

The representation in this book is perfection. It is a part of the characters, the ethnic backgrounds, the culture, the food, the sexuality, the friendships, the family dynamics. At no point is anything thrown out simply to check off a box. Instead, everything flows smoothly, everything feels authentic. 

I did not expect to love this book anywhere near as much as I did. I often find myself disappointed by books that claim to have Latinx representation in them, because I never feel I can relate, or I always feel it's not authentic. So I only read this book after a friend gushed about it. I figured I'd give it a shot and maybe read a couple pages so I could say "I tried." Well, after the first couple sentences I was hooked. THIS is what representation should look like. This is authentic, and real, and powerful. I laughed out loud, I sobbed hysterically, I woke my husband up in the middle of the night to tell him I loved this book. 

If you only read one book this year, it should be this one.

The book Don't Date Rosa Santos tells the story of a Cuban American teenager living in Florida. She is a senior preparing to graduate from high school, and she is trying to decide where to go to school and how to balance her relationships with her mother and grandmother. In the midst of this, she meets Alex, a boy who she is quickly attracted to. I appreciated the story of family dynamics as well as what it is like to be a Cuban exile from the perspective of someone who has never actually been to Cuba. The book did feel a little sappy at times, but otherwise, it was an enjoyable read.

First, a thank you to the publisher and author for providing me with a digital ARC of this title via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoy a good YA book and a nice chick-flick beach read kind of book every now and then. This book satisfied both. It is light and easy to read but had enough substance to make it stand out as more then a  YA romance beach read.  Rosa's grandmother fled from Cuba with her husband while pregnant with their first child, Rosa's mother. Her grandfather did not survive the journey, leaving her grandmother to make her way and raise her daughter alone in her new home. Rosa's mother also lost Rosa's father at sea while pregnant so Rosa is born to a line of Cuban women 'cursed" to lose their loves at sea. Growing up with that story, Rosa never ventures into the ocean even though their home is in a little coastal town in Florida. Each generation of Santos women has their own curses to face and overcome before they can learn to accept who they are and where they are. This book is their journey to overcome the curse as Rosa struggles to find her own identity and place in life after high school. There's self introspect, mother-daughter relationships, friendship, romance, and the strength of community all wrapped up into a touching, sweet coming of age story. I quite enjoyed this and am excited to pass it on to my teenage daughter.

This is a special book. I thought it was just going to be a romance with a Cuban main character (which I was still super hyped for). But, this is a story about a girl trying to relate to her heritage and trying to feel more Cuban while not living there and having a grandmother who won't talk about Cuba. She is also trying to figure out where to go to college and what her future is going to look like. 

I loved the small town dynamic (think Gilmore Girls, but Latinx) and how everyone is a gossip. The love interest is swoony and Rosa calls him "a Ravenclaw" so many times. Seriously, he reads, bakes, owns a boat, AND has tattoos. I loved the familial relationships. Seeing Rosa's relationship with her grandma was really special. I loved the non translated intermittent Spanish words sprinkled throughout. 

This book was so much fun to read. I laughed and I cried. Even though my grandparents did not come to America from Cuban (they came from South America), I still could relate to many of Rosa's thoughts and experiences related to being Latinx.

This book is beautiful and I love it! This book is heartwarming and sometimes heart-wrenching. I fell in love with Moreno's characters and the community she created. Reading this felt like reading a love letter to Latinx diaspora.

Full review here: gabimorataya.wordpress.com/2019/04/25/dont-date-rosa-santos-a-love-letter-to-latinx-diaspora/

Delightful. That’s the first word that comes to mind when I consider Don’t Date Rosa Santos, followed shortly by heartwarming and cozy, and all three are accurate descriptions for this novel. I was hooked from the very beginning; I liked Rosa from the moment I met her on the page, and was immediately confident that hers was going to be a story that I would see through till the end through all of the ups and downs (and perhaps unexpected twists). Throw in Cuban culture, the small-town Florida vibes, the eclectic cast of secondary characters, complicated relationships of all sorts (including a very cute budding attraction-slash-romance) and just a hint of magic, and you’ll basically get this novel in a nutshell. It was both entertaining and emotional, and I enjoyed it! I’d definitely recommend checking this one out, particularly if you’re looking for a new YA contemporary to devour.

Note: I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

I'm going to be introducing a new post format here, because to be completely honest, I don't really like my old one, so here goes. 

SUMMARY 

Rosa Santos is cursed by the sea-at least, that's what they say. Dating her is bad news, especially if you're a boy with a boat.

But Rosa feels more caught than cursed. Caught between cultures and choices. Between her abuela, a beloved healer and pillar of their community, and her mother, an artist who crashes in and out of her life like a hurricane. Between Port Coral, the quirky South Florida town they call home, and Cuba, the island her abuela refuses to talk about.
As her college decision looms, Rosa collides-literally-with Alex Aquino, the mysterious boy with tattoos of the ocean whose family owns the marina. With her heart, her family, and her future on the line, can Rosa break a curse and find her place beyond the horizon?
THE GOOD

As you'll see in the following section, "Don't Date Rosa Santos" isn't a perfect book, but it's absolutely packed with heart. I saw that especially in its depiction of the Cuban community in Port Coral, a vibrant Florida town. It's clear that the author has a deep love of and respect for Cuban culture and communities, and that shines through again and again. The way the entire community is so supportive (and chismoso) and willing and able to band together to save its beloved marina made me hope that somewhere out there is a real Port Coral. THE VIEJITAS AND THEIR CONSTANT SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE GAVE ME SO MUCH LIFE. (I love them, and I want a bunch of old neighbors who run a gossipy Instagram page about each other now.) It almost seems like this is a love letter to Cuban culture and the value it places on relationships, and that was by far the best part of the book. It reminded me of that famous F. Scott Fitzgerald quote about "selling your heart" when you write; by infusing her own experiences (as explained in the acknowledgements, much of this novel was drawn from the author's life) into her characters' lives, Nina Moreno does just that. 

It also explored the strain that cultural and generational barriers can place on relationships with grace and sensitivity. Abuela Mimi's former life in Cuba is a subject Rosa has never really been allowed to approach, leaving her with unanswered questions that sometimes strain their relationship; Rosa's fear of repeating her mother's mistakes, which Mimi shares, puts them all through a great deal of strife; and throughout the book, it's hard for them to communicate because all have experiences that the others just do not understand. Again, in the acknowledgements, Moreno states that she wanted to shine a light on the reality of diaspora and how it impacts the Cuban community in the United States - mission accomplished. Though I'm not Cuban and I've never had any experiences like the Santos family's, I came away from "Don't Date Rosa Santos" with a greater understanding of the unique pressures that having escaped from a totalitarian regime places on immigrant communities.

(Also, on a slightly lighter note, Alex is friggin' adorable, Rosa's overcoming her fears was fantastically triumphant while being realistically messy and difficult, I wanted to eat all of the food, and every single festival scene was incredibly fun. The post-gator kiss was a highlight.) 

THE BAD

In a lot of cases, it seemed like "Don't Date Rosa Santos" succeeded more on a thematic/big-picture level than it did on a personal one. Rosa, while she was a sympathetic character, wasn't a supremely compelling protagonist, and most of the supporting cast (aside from Alex, Mimi, and Liliana), however interesting, wasn't explored in any depth. (That was understandable, even inevitable - there were so many characters that they literally could not have all been fleshed out - but it would have been nice if a few were.) 

Plus, I'm not entirely sure what was up with the witchcraft angle. It could very well be a part of Cuban culture that I've never been exposed to, but if it isn't, it was a little weird and random at times. It would come out of nowhere - almost every time something went wrong, someone was yelling for Rosa to get the materials to do a spell. Since a lot goes wrong in this book, this was frequent. And since the burgeoning popularity of witch stories is one of my least favorite trends in YA lit, that wasn't my favorite. It may well be very prominent in Cuban communities, in which case it was included for the sake of realism, but if it isn't, it was a little...gratuitous. 

RATING 

All right, guys, new system! Instead of a flat rating, I'm going to be giving the book a rating out of 5 on each of the following categories. Average score is the final rating. 

Plot: 4/5 - I didn't really get what was up with the curse, but Rosa's relationships with her family, the college decision, and the Spring Festival made for very strong sideplots.

Characters: 3/5 - meh, but not bad in any way.

Pacing: 5/5 - never too fast or too slow.

Handling of Subject Matter: 5/5 - this was the best by far, as explained already.

Writing Quality: 4/5 - it was very well-written, but the style wasn't really a standout. 

Message/Moral/Appropriateness for Audience: 3.5/5 - this book has less of a message/moral than it has social commentary, but it could certainly help readers who aren't from diaspora communities to better empathize the struggles of those who are - that's a very worthy moral in and of itself. On the appropriateness side, was pretty clean - there was scattered cursing but it was decidedly PG-13, the romance never got anywhere near steamy, and it only really got docked for the witchcraft stuff. Though it's pretty clean, I wouldn't recommend this to the younger end of the YA spectrum just because its themes are very mature - they're not in any way inappropriate, but it covers heavy subject matter that could be hard to understand/relate to for younger readers. They might not like it much, although if they shared some of Rosa's experiences, they'd probably be more likely to enjoy it.

Overall: 4.08/5

Rosa Santos is a second-generation Cuban-American and the third generation of Santos women cursed to lose their true love to the sea.. Other than a mostly-absent mother and a big secret she's keeping from her grandmother, Rosa has her life pretty much "on course.". .When a hottie with a boat comes to town, her mom returns and her secret gets out, Rosa's carefully crafted plans flounder..    . 

It's a light & breezy with a some bittersweet moments, a little bit of magical realism and a lot of heart. I'd recommend to teens in grades 8 and up.. .