'Down to the Bone' - Mayra Lazra Doyle

[bookgazing]

Young adult novels where the main character gets outed always make me cringe, because coming out seems such a huge decision to lose control over. In ‘Down to the Bone’ Laura gets outed in spectacularly awful way. A nun reads a letter from Laura’s girlfriend to her entire Catholic class. The backlash against tortillierras (the derogatory Spanish slang for lesbians) starts right away, as Laura is thrown out of school and then thrown out of her mother’s house when she refuses to name her girlfriend. Laura quickly finds out how hard the Cuban-American community can be on lesbians.

Luckily she has her best friend Soli (the only black Latina at their Catholic school) and Soli’s mother Viva to take care of her while she tries to work out what to do. Over the next year Laura makes some spectacular new friends, messes up, sorts herself out and begins to accept herself as a lesbian.

I’m obviously not going to get any further with this review, as I finished the book ages ago and things got in the way of me completing the review. Will you forgive me if I offer up a resources post instead and let other reviews talk about why you might want to read ‘Down to the Bone’?


Author Profile

Interviews

Chasing Ray
Teen Book Review
I'm Here, I'm Queer, What the Hell Do I Read?

Guest Posts

Amy Bowllans Blog

Reviews

Teen Book Review
Book Nymph
Black Eyed Susan
Bookslut
YA or STFU