Liliana is a bold new voice in YA fiction.  A compelling story about navigating the worlds of school and family, compounded by the layers of class, immigration, and emerging into her own identity as a sophmore.  De Leon resists any easy classifications with her characters, allowing them to be fully complex without judgment.  I will recommend this book for independent reading and book clubs at my school.  It is also a wonderful book to tie into discussions about public education in the U.S.. as well as immigration and class and race dynamics.  I think about how literature allows us to see into the lives of others to build empathy and understanding.  De Leon's story does this with easy and welcomes the reader into the world of Liliana, her family, and her friend at her new school.

This is a great realistic fiction for teens.  Teens of any culture will relate to Liliana and her struggles, however many Latinx teens may find some of their own struggles and worries mirrored in this strong female main character.  As a middle-aged person, I found some of the dialogue and slang difficult, but it seems authentic and I think teens will not have a problem with it, at all.

This book was one of my favorites this year. There was so much love and pain in it that is so real on this world to this day.
The stress Liliannas mom feels from her husband being deported is what families still fear and go through to this day. 
Racism that slowly builds in Lilliannas new school is so painful to listen to. 
Thank you for opening up my eyes even more to this, my mother and her side of the family are all mexican/American. We didnt have to deal with deportation because we were born in the states but I'm sure my family further down the line might have. Who know.
The way Lilliana and the other Metco students try to deal and open up other students minds and eyes to what happened with her and the other boy through online racist memes. It hurt to read and I felt her pain. Their ideas of opening up to other students and speaking out while at first worked against them, Jade helped her out with a brilliant idea to bring everyone together.

At a time in the US when questions of race, immigration status, and personal identity threaten to become disembodied ideological arguments in the public square, "Don't Ask Me Where I'm From" draws readers to imagine the implications of those arguments on the real lives of people. The author has written a main character who's easy to care about, and as she grows in self-understanding, readers' empathize with her and others who are forced to fight for acceptance and belonging simply because of who they are. 

I would love to see this book displayed and discussed in school classrooms and libraries and in online discussion forums.. Now is the perfect time to grow in understanding and caring for one another, and this book is a great step in that direction.

I liked this book a lot. De Leon is a talented writer and I look forward to reading her future titles!

I will be using selections of this text in my creative writing workshop to show students how to write dialogue.

This is the sort of thing that students across America should be reading. Studies have shown how reading can increase compassion, and this is exactly the sort of book which will generate the empathy needed for an increase of compassion and tolerance. This isn't my lived experience, which makes it all the more important that I should read about it.

Don't Ask Me Where I'm From takes us through Liliana's thoughts and feelings about being LatinX. Liliana gets accepted into a Metco program at a new school. This story goes through the challenges of being a minority in a school brimming with white students, some who are accepting of other races, and some who are not. This is a story with parts about racism and unkindness, but there are also parts about growth and acceptance. The story of Liliana's father being deported is interspersed throughout as her family tries to come to the realization that they may never see him again. This story was a quick and engaging read I would encourage others to read.

Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, Jennifer De Leon’s debut novel, follows Latinx teen Liliana Cruz as she transitions from a school in her diverse inner-city Boston neighborhood to a predominantly white school for an integration program known as METCO. While juggling relationship drama, she also copes with her family issues, including her mother’s depression and her dad’s sudden disappearance, which bring certain family secrets to light. 

Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From covers an array of important topics, especially considering the current political climate in the United States. These topics include immigration and the anxieties that come with being undocumented, racism, tokenism, code-switching, economic inequalities, activism, segregation and self-segregation.  . .

Lilliana Cruz lives in Boston with her mother and twin brothers. Her dad has been gone for longer than ever before. He does odd jobs and has disappeared for work before, but never for this long and Liliana is worried. At school Liliana finds out she was accepted into the METCO program that buses kids from the city to a school in the suburbs. Not only does Liliana not want to leave her school, but she didn’t even know her parents signed her up for this program.

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I really enjoyed this read. I think it is an important book to have on the shelves for teens and adults alike. Liliana is Latinx with one parent from Guatemala and the other from El Salvador. She has a unique experience growing up bilingual and with the rich influences of her family’s cultures. When she is accepted into the METCO program, the new school she attends is predominately white. This really brought things home for me, showing me things that I grow up with through the eyes of Liliana. I grew up in a small Midwestern, mostly white town so many of the things she was seeing and reacting to are things I experienced. High school kids each getting their own car at 16/17, kids leaving their bicycles and scooters out overnight without a second thought, kids with newspaper routes. I had all of that as a kid, and stories like this make me reflect on that privilege.

I love Liliana’s character. She is a writer at heart, an avid reader, and she loves making miniatures! I’ve always had a fascination with miniatures, but have always been too scared (or overwhelmed) to jump in and create some of my own. But I think that’s what I love most about her character, even when she has some apprehension, she gives the things she loves 100% of herself. When the METCO program plans to host an assembly for the school to discuss diversity, Liliana jumps right in and doesn’t stop until her vision is fulfilled.

Pick up this book, gift it to a friend, request it at your local library. It is so important to share these stories and the lessons they teach us.

Thank you so much to Simon & Schuester Children’s Publishing for having me on this tour!

I really enjoyed this book! Liliana's experience is a reality for many of Boston's METCO students. As a teacher at a high school that participates in the METCO program, I came away from this book with a stronger understanding of what my students from Boston may experience at our suburban school. While there are many other METCO stories, of course (and De Leon also highlights the experiences of her classmates), Liliana's story is empowering and important. I love that Liliana uses writing and art to express herself and create change in her community, and her relationships in the school were both believable and relatable. I have taught a few Lilianas. Her story explores how it might feel to be a person of color in a predominantly white community, especially during the Trump era. I will recommend this book to my students!

Wow! This was a great book. It was very eye opening. As a Black woman, I have often read YA books with young Black characters or white characters. To have a protagonist that was not only Latinx, but also young was very enlightening. Ms. DeLeon did a very good job with developing her characters, making them seem relatable,  while also teaching about a culture that often is undermined. Having taught in a school with majority Latinx finding relevant modern books was difficult.  I will definitely use this in my classroom and recommend it to other students. My only qualm was the ending just seemed a little flat. Things were wrapped up nicely and there were not any loose ends, however, the ending didn't deliver that last thought provoking punch that was expected. Overall, it was phenomenal.

I enjoyed reading this novel about a first generation teenage girl whose parents are from Central America trying to navigate between two worlds--her school world, which is in a rich white suburb and her home world, which is in Jamaica Plain, Boston a more diverse area where there are plenty of people like her. 

Liliana Cruz doesn't fit in to her new school very well at first, but she knows her parents have sacrificed a lot to have her grow up with these kinds of opportunities. In this way, she has problems that any other teenager has: boys, friends, grades. But she also has worries at home, worries that only arise from belonging to an immigrant family. 

Don't Ask Me Where I'm From raises a lot of interesting issues, all woven together through the eyes of one young girl. It's never preachy, but it does delve deeply into many real-world situations are country is going through right now when it comes to questions of undocumented immigrants. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to read an authentic story about first generation teenagers and their undocumented parents.

Don't Ask Me Where I'm From is a coming of age story that follows a teen girl as she navigates a new school and relationships and is confronted by racism and microaggressions. I liked having the POV from a Central American character, because I don't think we see that enough, and I appreciated how the author delved into the many issues facing the Latinx community. 

Although I enoyed it, the writing style was very casual "teen" speak that I didn't always like and I was dissatisfied with the way this book handled Lili's dad's deportation. I feel like the nuances of certain issues were glossed over and I find it crazy how she announced that he was deported in front of her entire school, and when he sneaks back into the US the book never goes into how he deals with the consequences or how he is able to live without being caught. Nevertheless, I like how this book is able to spark important conversations, even if I wasn't one hundred percent on board with the execution.

Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon is a book about a first generation Latinx, Liliana Cruz, who is given this incredible opportunity to go to a METCO program and a great school in the suburbs of Boston.  The school that she is going to is night and day different from the school that she is coming from, and she suddenly finds herself to be the minority in a mostly white school. 
  The story follows Liliana as adjusts to her new school and attempts to make friends in the unfamiliar surroundings.  Even the other kids that are being bused in from Boston are shunning her and she is struggling to find her place.  Slowly, she makes a friend, Holly, and she starts to date Dustin. 
  At home, Liliana is struggling with a mother that is slowly slipping further into depression and a father who has inexplicably disappeared.  Come to find out her father was deported and Liliana learns that both of her parents are undocumented.  What does this mean for her family?  Will her father ever make it back from Guatemala?  Will her mother be taken away too?  Will she be responsible for her little brothers.  
  Liliana has to deal with so many things that a teenager should never have to face, but is unfortunately all to common in our world today.
  This story definitely tackles some very important issues, such as segregation, racism, deportation and depression.  This book would be a great tool in the hands of a skilled English teacher.  
  The Author does a great job of following Liliana as she finds her voice and begins to stand up for herself and the other kids that are in her program with her.  
  The book is written as a stream of conscious and feels like Liliana is telling a close friend what was happening in her life.  I liked that.  It made the experience throughout the book feel more personal and made you upset when she was upset and happy when she was happy
  I’m giving it 3 stars cause the book was probably a little to young for me.  It used the phrase “Hello” and ‘Whaa” to the point that it would stop the flow of my reading and got on my nerves over time, (like I said probably to young for me.). Also, it felt like the ending might of been a bit rushed.  Suddenly, in the last 50 pages, Liliana finds her voice and stands up for herself.  She realizes in a tiny blurb that she shouldn’t judge either.  It doesn’t feel like there was a lot of character growth throughout the book, just suddenly everything is in a neat little bow.  I would’ve liked to see that there was some character growth on all sides.

What is it like to be one of the few black students at a white, upper class suburban school? Boston has a program, METCO, that takes black students from the city and buses them to the suburbs - places like Wellesley, Concord and Braintree, with means and able to provide better facilities and challenges than underfunded city schools. Liliana lives in Jamaica Plain (JP to white people) and is smart, a writer, and dealing with her father being away from home longer than usual. Then she gets into the METCO program (her father signed her up) and starts attending school in a fictitious suburb of Boston.

Lili has to deal with being separated from her friends and a comfortable environment and figuring out how to fit in with a new community. Sometimes that goes well, sometimes not so much. Watching her negotiate the different systems, making new friends and maintaining her old life, is fascinating. The title comes from the ending, where she and the other BIPOC students host an assembly of things they don't want to be asked and what bothers them about their interactions with their schoolmates.

A must read for those looking for a window or mirror into this world.

eARC provided by publisher.

American-born Lilliana and her twin brothers live in Boston with their Salvadoran Mother and Guatemalan Father. Her father has been mysteriously missing for the past two weeks. Her mother is too upset to talk about it. Lilliana has been accepted to METCO, a program to put good students in low-performing schools into high-achieving suburban schools.   She reluctantly accepts the offer, leaving everyone she’s known behind. Struggling to fit in with her new classmates, she meets Dustin, a boy she has a crush on. Can Lilliana figure out how to fit in at her new school? Will things go further with Dustin? Mixed with Latino pop culture reference and Spanish Words, the author does a great job of bringing to life Lilliana’s world and her struggles to balance two different worlds. The plot is realistic and easy to step into. The characters are likable and well-portrayed. Readers who enjoy realistic fiction, stories about fitting in, and family will enjoy reading this book.

I really loved this book. Liliana is a normal kid, although as the story unfolds, we learn that her life is more complicated than we initially thought. Attending a new school, learning after her father is deported that her parents are undocumented, her mother's depression, her best friend's distraction, her own struggles to find her place in a different world than what she's used to.

I love that the story doesn't make everything neat and easy, but that we absolutely see Liliana's growth throughout the story, as well as those around her. Highly recommended, particularly for those who haven't considered what life is like for families with undocumented members in the US.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This novel captures the complexities of being a student from Boston in the METCO program. It should be on a book ladder with Jerry Craft’s New Kid and Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give. There are some pacing issues, but the value of this text, especially its handling of code switching, stereotypes, and the pressure of being a teen make me certain that I will purchase several copies for class libraries.

When Liliana discovers that her mother has put Lili's name in for to a desegregation program, she's surprised. When she's selected to  study at a new school in Boston, a predominately white school where she doesn't feel like she fits in at all, she's not that happy at all, but decides to give it a try. She bonds with other kids in her program and struggles to cope with her father's sudden absence and her mom's depression.

Don't Ask Me Where I'm From has a main character whose narrative voice and desire to fit in will ring true to teen and tween readers. The story addresses issues like immigration, mental health, racism and classism, and school segregation (an issue with which Boston has a long and complicated history) in ways that will also resonate with young readers.

Thanks to NetGalley for a digital arc of this book, which I loved. Liliana, her struggles, her growth, and her triumphs will stay with me for a long time. The portrayal of a family whose father has been deported and whose mother wrestles with depression was timely and honest. I will definitely recommend this to teen readers.