Thank you Netgalley and Flux for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Set in the early 2010s, “What We Did To Each Other” follows seventeen-year-old Yesenia Rivera as she battles deep insecurities about her appearance—her dark skin, curly hair, and Mexican heritage. After moving to a predominantly white town in the Pacific Northwest, she seizes the opportunity to reinvent herself. Through skin-lightening creams, dyed-blonde hair, blue contacts, and a new, "whiter" name—Jessie—she is able to pass as white and achieve the social acceptance she’s always dreamed of.

Parallel to her story is Guillermo ("Willy") Rivera, a struggling teen who leans into stereotypes to survive in a school and society eager to pigeonhole him. As he drifts into drug dealing to support his family, their lives collide, with devastating consequences.

Hernandez doesn't shy away from tackling weighty subjects like internalized racism, colorism, assimilation, and the exhausting performativity demanded by white spaces. The depiction of microaggressions, both subtle and overt, is especially sharp and unsettling, grounding the story in a brutal reality many readers will find familiar.

Yesenia's descent into self-erasure is heartbreaking and compelling. Watching her wrestle with anxiety, shame, and fleeting moments of triumph as "Jessie" adds emotional complexity to the story. Her character’s downfall is painful but necessary, a stark portrayal of the price of abandoning one’s roots for acceptance. There's a tangible, almost thrilling sense of dread as Jessie’s lies stack up, and the constant fear of being exposed propels the tension forward, even when the pacing lags. Hernandez explores how passing as white can grant privilege, but also demands an unbearable psychological toll. It’s a nuanced, necessary conversation rarely explored in YA fiction.

The prose is often overly simplistic, sometimes reading more like a rough draft than a polished novel. Dialogue can feel unnatural, and characters sometimes lack the depth needed to fully bring the heavy themes to life. The frequent use of untranslated Spanish adds authenticity but may alienate readers without enough context to follow. While many phrases are decipherable, at other points it interrupts the flow for non-Spanish speakers.

Overall, “What We Did To Each Other” is a messy, ambitious debut that wrestles with important, often painful realities of race, identity, and survival. Its heart is firmly in the right place.. Those drawn to complicated stories about identity, self-hatred, and the cost of assimilation will likely find Yesenia’s journey raw, unsettling, and worth thinking about long after the last page.

🎭 Content Warnings: racism, colorism, drug use, self-hate, emotional trauma, violence.
📚 Verdict: An imperfect but memorable exploration of the toxic bargains marginalized teens are forced to make in the pursuit of belonging.

Great story that discusses internalized colorism and racism. Great YA book! This is something everyone should read.

A young adult novel on the dangers and toxicity of internalized colorism and racism. Throughout this story, the reader observes our protagonist, Yesenia, receive a constant stream of micro and macro aggressions telling her what color and languages are beautiful and popular. Yesenia, recognizing these barriers, makes the drastic decision to pass as white, thinking this will solve all her problems, injustices, and insecurities. On one hand, she starts receiving the privileges of a beautiful, white teenage girl, but on the other hand she struggles to maintain her facade and is in a constant state of anxiety and shame. When Guillermo enters into the picture, the stakes become higher and we see “Jessie” slowly lose her sense of self and dignity. It was a slower pace than I would have liked and I wish there was more context for the ending, but I overall enjoyed this book. There was a thrill in the constant anxiety, and I love the juxtaposition between different Latinx characters and the choices each of them make to get by in a predominantly white area.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC! Posted on goodreads.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flux for providing an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

While I appreciate the social commentary, this book was sadly a huge miss for me.

To be honest, my first impression of What We Did to Each Other wasn't the best. We start with Yesenia's POV, and the first proper description we get about her is about her tits. And yes, that's the actual word that's used. I don't know many girls/women who refer to their own breasts as 'tits' instead of one of the several alternatives, especially when just observing themselves in the mirror. Others may disagree, but I found it jarring and uncomfortable.

As for the story itself, I think it's being held back by the dual POV narrative. Yesenia's POV is simply way more interesting than Guillermo's. The main plot is about her, after all. Guillermo feels more like a background character who's slowing working behind the scenes to figure out what's actually going on. Except he's written to be one of the two leads, and his actual storyline about dealing drugs really isn't that relevant to the overall plot. I think this would've been better if it were told strictly through Yesenia's POV and Guillermo just popped in as necessary to foreshadow that he was onto her.

Now onto the writing. I understand this is a debut, so I don't want to be too critical, but I struggled to engage with it. The style is overly simplistic, which isn't always a bad thing, but it reads as amateur opposed to intentional. I think my main issue is that the characters don't feel like actual people. Not only are their depictions hollow, but the dialogue and behavior feels so unnatural. And I was a high schooler in the early 2010s, so I know first hand. (On that note, I completely forgot that this book was set in that time period because it's literally never mentioned. The One Direction mention threw me off so badly until I remembered, and the only reason I knew is because I read the book's description before I began the book.)

Also the ending was very abrupt and strange. Once I hit the 90% mark I wondered how everyone could possibly get wrapped up in time. Then the intensity goes from zero to one hundred all within the final page. If the intention was to create shock value, I suppose it worked. But it would've been a lot more impactful if the book didn't end literally right after that.

ARC read What we did to Each other by Jousee Hernandez hit home for this Hispanic millennial. We join Yesenia Rivera and her desperate quest to fit it. Guillermo Rivera is so like Yesenia in his need to fit in. Together the two carry on until they can’t any more….