Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“Ben Saenz’s vivid imagination captures all that is beautiful, agonizing and redemptive in the crossings we make through borders of geography and culture. But it is in the interior journeys of the psyche and the soul that we must find salvation; Saenz’s brilliant prose penetrates to that core and he finds and exposes that truth. A reader can ask for no more than this: to be spellbound by a story, and to come to the last page
...A finalist for the PEN USA Literary Award, this novel sensitively captures a teen's recovery from alcohol abuse and depression.
Zach is pretty sure that when he was born, God wrote Sad on his heart. Now, at eighteen, he finds himself with a drinking problem and walking the halls of rehab instead of high school. The thing is, he doesn't remember exactly how he checked in.
Instead of a dog, Zach has a therapist. He'd rather have
...Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood is our American Graffiti.
No, that's not right. It's our Mexican Graffiti.—Denise Chavez
The "Hollywood" where Sammy Santos and Juliana Ríos live is not the West Coast one, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edge of a small town in southern New Mexico. Sammy and his friends—members of the 1969 high school graduating class—face a world
...