I enjoyed the authentic feel to the culture and experiences of our main character , and the realistic challenges and hardships of having a parent deported while you remain the states. I found some of the dialogue to be a bit immature but it was fitting for a YA novel. Overall I thought this was a great own voices story that highlights real experiences of children of undocumented immigrants and their resilience, while also being a YA story with great characters in the process

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Shay Bravo has done a great job on this debut novel of hers. Soledad is out of sorts because her mom has recently been deported. She is going to school at the local community college and decides to join the history club. She's asked to do a daring stunt as an initiation into the club - break into a house and steal a fork. The owners of the house are not home, but their grandson is, and catches her in the act. She gets away but runs into him later at school. Soledad ends up recruiting him to the history club and their relationship grows through the process.

I typically have patience while reading a book and will give it time to pick up, especially if I like the characters, but this book just isn’t for me. I requested it because I thought it might be something my students would be interested in reading, and maybe they would, but I couldn’t finish this book.

Historically Inaccurate is a contemporary YA novel about college freshman Soledad “Sol” Gutierrez. Sol's mother was deported roughly a year ago which led to Sol staying in her small town with her dad and attending the local community college. In an effort to get more involved/pad her resume she joins a history club a friend of hers is a part of and that's where the story pretty much kicks off. In order to be initiated into the club, members have to complete a dare of some kind and when Sol is completing her (breaking into an empty house and stealing a fork) things go wrong and she gets caught.

I was really looking forward to this story but unfortunately I was disappointed. While there were some positive aspects of the story they weren't enough to keep me engaged in the story and ultimately I thought it was just okay but not overly enjoyable.

The Good: I liked the cast of characters in general. It was nice to see how diverse the characters were without the diversity feeling forced and while none of them were super well developed they all had unique voices and seemed fairly realistic for their age. I also liked how the friendship and family dynamics between different characters were portrayed. Sol and her dad were very cute and the whole "history club" in general were weird but fun and I wish we'd gotten more of them. Diane in particular was often the voice of reason and her friendship with Sol was very believable. If I was doing the things Sol was doing I would expect at least one of my friends to react exactly like Diane.

The Not So Good: unfortunately that's really all I enjoyed. While the characters themselves were fine their motivations rarely made sense. The plot is all over the place and because of that the characters are too. The book tries to set up some high stakes but even the prank/crime Sol committed to get into the club is relatively harmless and since the only person who even knows about it is her love interest there really shouldn't have been any worries there. The characters would seemingly resolve a conflict and then it will come back up later as though it's still an issue. Because of this, the story doesn't seem to progress very much, it feels like it's going around in circles and just feels very slow.

The dialogue and Sol's perspective/inner thoughts is also rough. For the most part, the author does a good job of making the characters seem their age but then they'll go on these long, rambling speeches or have conversations that are clearly trying to get a point across but that just don't sound natural at all. They have good morals but really pull the reader out of the story.

Overall: This story had a lot of potential to be a great coming of age story but ultimately just wasn't developed enough. I think it would have really benefited from some additional edits to not only make it more cohesive but also to catch some typos which made it through to the final published edition. I think it was a fine first effort and I'd consider reading more books by this author in the future but unfortunately this one just wasn't for me.

I didn't finish this book. It felt like a lot of other books I have read on the Wattpad application. Maybe I will like her other books.

Historically Inaccurate handles tough subjects - such as racism, deportation, and trying to find out who you are - with care and justice. Overall this was a solid read and one that would be great for Latinx History Month.

this coming of age story, while not a terrible read, also had nothing i felt that made it special. the representation was great, but the story itself was a little bland.

I thought this book was just alright. I appreciate what the author was trying to do though. I found the plot a bit weak, and I had more questions than answers. I loved the main character.

While this book definitely tried its best with diversity, the writing just was not for me. I noticed upon receiving the ARC that it was a Wattpad story, and while I don't discredit this kind of work, I've been unlucky with them in the past.

This story did it's best to be diverse, but I'd argue it tried a little too hard. I noticed one other reviewer mentioning the misgendering scene, which I also found super uncomfortable.

I think with some more work, this plot could have been clearer and less rambl-y.

It just seemed like a bland generic college experience. I just wanted more than I was given from this story. There was a lot of potential but not a ton of follow through.

As much as I loved the diverse cast of characters, I couldn't bring myself to enjoy the book. The beginning was repetitive and slow. The pacing was not cohesive, changes in tone fluctuated too quickly.

In addition, Sol and Ethan's relationship felt forced. The nuances that are usually in romance were just not there. The characters were not very dimensional or interesting, and I needed more backstories.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an eARC of Historically Inaccurate in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinions in any way.

I truly think this book had a lot of potential given its premise, and the story itself could be of great value, but I feel like this book just wasn't for me. The writing was a little bit off, as there were some parts where I felt like I was reading fanfiction of some kind, just not quite not what you hope for in a published novel.

i feel like this book had so much potential, since there could have been so much growth between Sol and her mom, and figuring everything out. And definitely some growth between Sol and Ethan growing in their romance, since i feel like it was kind of boring, and there wasn't really a plot to this story. the writing on the other hand, was pretty terrible. i really think that the writing can grow, and that if this gets more practice, this writing could get better. but, I also feel like all the diversity, with the race and the lgbtq+, was so amazing. but, the amount of times that the author misgendered a character just pissed be off.

As important as the themes are in this book, I found the overall execution underwhelming. I would be interested to see what the author does in the future.

Tapping out at the 40% mark on this book.

The beginning had promise. The prank Sol has to pull is silly and inoffensive enough to be forgivable (she has to steal a fork as part of an initiation to a club), yet boundary-violating enough to sympathize with Ethan (the grandson of the elderly couple whose home Sol breaks into for the fork) being legitimately alarmed. I liked that Sol brought her own fork to replace the one she steals, because that says a lot about her character.

I also really liked the story around Sol's family, and Sol's guilt at her role in the separation. Her mom has been deported and Sol was partially responsible for her mom's immigration status being discovered. So Sol lives with just her dad in the US, and constantly misses + keeps in touch with her mom. I love how realistic this felt, and I can imagine this is a terrible situation lots of families in the US have to face.

Unfortunately, so much of the book focuses on Sol trying to fit in with the history club at her school, and the history club is just stupid -- and worse, boring. It's led by this alpha bully, who terrorizes the members into doing what she says. The history club does zero history-related things, apart from wearing costumes of historical figures at a get-together. Instead, their main purpose appears to be getting newbies to do dangerous and illegal pranks. (It's the initiation to this club that required Sol to steal the fork.) I don't understand why anyone would want to join the club, and once they were in, to even stay a member. It's like the Unicorn Club from Sweet Valley Twins, but without the cool factor.

There seems to be a romance brewing between Sol and Ethan, and apart from the comedic meet-cute, I don't really feel the connection. Worse, even Ethan gets embroiled in the stupid history club. When he asks Sol for the key she used to break into his grandparents' home, the history club leader says he can only get it if he joins the club. So now Sol is trying to help Ethan with his initiation, and I was just done with the story. I honestly don't know why Ethan doesn't just get the locks at his grandparents' home changed. It will be a lot simpler, and a lot more logical.

Compelling beginning, heart-rending look at some of the real consequences of US immigration policy, and some interesting points raised by Ethan about being Black in the US. But the plot revolved around the history club, and lots of things about that didn't really make sense to me. DNF at 40%.

It’s been actually a while since I enjoyed a really well written YA coming of age novel - and Historically Inaccurate provides a light and breezy way of writing some topics that are hard hitting and would end up being a lot more hard to read.

Sol is a college student whose mom was deported to Mexico when they had an accident - so while she was dealing with a broken body, her mother was being treated as a criminal by ICE & being sent back to a country where she hasn’t been to since she was a child; away from her family.

So all Sol wants to do is, make her parents proud, study hard and save enough money to appoint a lawyer to bring her mother back to the US when she turns 21.

What she definitely wasn’t expecting was to get caught breaking and entering into an old couple’s place while trying to do an initiation ceremony for a History Club, of all thing; just to have a better resume for future applications.

Historically Inaccurate is a coming of age novel that gives its readers a young romance, with wonderfully diverse representation as well as issues that are handled with care, hope and faith!

Would definitely recommend it if you need something different and very well written!

Historically Inaccurate. Where do I start?

I think I was expecting something different with this book! It was okay, pretty average.

I liked Soledad for the most part, but her inner monologues got to be a bit much. I hated that she wouldn’t take responsibility for the most part of her actions. I get that peer pressure did play a part, and her worrying about her mom and the future, but it frustrated me a bit with her putting all of the blame on Anna and Carlos. I think that one of the things I loved WAS Soledad’s relationship with her parents in general. They’re support of her and how they made it work despite their situation, the author did a wonderful job with their relationship and still showing the struggle of deportation and ICE.

It frustrated me that the one transgender character we got, the only way are told she is trans is by the main male character misgendering her, repeatedly. How Ethan acted as well about Anna and almost seeming...betrayed, that he thought Anna was just gay and not transgender. It also left me feeling uncomfortable that Anna not giving Ethan his house key back was insinuated to be some sort of personal vendetta against him from Anna.

Though, I also didn’t like that it felt like Ethan’s very real concerns as a black man committing a crime were pretty much ignored and they instead made him BREAK INTO A MUSEUM.

Overall, this book was average I’d say. I had more things I disliked than liked, but it was still a good read.

First of all I would like to thank Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book.

This was a coming of age story that was very entertaining and even romantic. I really connected with Soledad's character she seemed so young yet full of purpose especially having to deal with the deportation of her mother.

The History Club was also quite interesting making this an overall decent read. The only criticism I have is that I would have liked a little more action though. There were some parts in the middle where the book seemed to drag on longer than it should have. Apart from that for me it was a nice young adult novel.

While the book was a fun read, it's not something I would ever read again. I felt that Soledad was a well-written main character, one who makes mistakes and has her own periods of self-growth. However, I felt that no one else was nearly as well-developed. I didn't know for sure that the love interest was Black until more than halfway through the book, and the trans character is only ever identified as trans when she's misgendered by someone else. This book provides a good Latinx representation and healthy discussions on sexuality and stress, but other representation falls flat.
Also the whole initiation process for the history club? Ridiculous. I did a mock trial case where a college kid's hazing ritual was to go into an alligator farm after hours and grab an alligator egg but dies by getting eaten by an alligator after falling in. The initiation process in this book is somehow worse. And you learn just how bad it was towards the end when finally all of the secrets behind the book are revealed. Granted, I know that this is a fictional story and that it serves a purpose as it introduces the two main characters to each other, but I don't think this dubiously legal club was a necessary plot device. It definitely calls for you to suspend any disbelief for the plot to move forward.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our library wishlist and recommended it to students.