Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass

Piddy Sanchez isn't happy about having to switch high schools in tenth grade - and she's even less happy when she's informed that "Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass." Piddy doesn't know Yaqui, but that doesn't matter: Yaqui's after her. Piddy doesn't want to fight, but Yaqui finds her anyway, and Piddy is afraid to go back to school. Absences pile up as Piddy tries to figure out what to do. Her old friend Mitzi moved from their Queens neighborhood to Long Island and is swept up in her new school life with new friends; Piddy tells her mother's best friend Lila some of what's going on, but swears her to secrecy. Finally, the bullying comes to the school administration's attention via the anonymous reporting box.

Quotes

"Nobody gets happy show more the same way. That's what's interesting." (Lila to Piddy re: telenovelas, 49)

A lot of the salon women tell me this: "You've become a woman." None of them ever sounds too happy about it. (63)

"When do I get to know the story of my own life?" (Piddy to Lila, re: her missing father, 67)

I don't even know I'm in big trouble until it has swallowed me whole. (71)

I've never been so mean to her, but now all I want is to make her feel small. I need her company down here at the bottom of this pit, where maybe she can hug me and tell me it's all right. (83)

Talking about a secret is like finding a way out of a cave, isn't it? You can't be sure whether you're going deeper in or climbing free. (236)

I've been thinking lately that growing up is like walking through glass doors that only open one way - you can see where you came from but can't go back. (255) show less

With the first sentence of the book Piddy Sanchez is informed by a stranger named Vanessa that Yaqui Delgado wants to kick her ass. Piddy does not even know Yaqui Delgado because she and her single mom just moved to a new neighborhood in Queens, NY and therefore a new school. Within the next two pages, she learns that she is stuck up and shakes her ass. This information comes from her new, nerdy friend Darlene who is in all her honors classes, and who also happens to be a student aide in the guidance office. “Interesting. I’ve only had an ass for about six months, and now it seems it has a mind of its own.” (3) The title and this remark might lead one to think that this will be a lighthearted exploration of bullying but the girls show more will end up being best friends in the end. That is not what unfolds because this is a powerful, realistic look at bullying and how it can quickly and dramatically change a great student's life. As the threats and violence escalate, Piddy does not know where to turn even though her mother is loving and Lila, her mother’s best friend, is a supportive presence in both their lives and she slowly disintegrates beneath the pressure. Medina addresses myriad issues such as domestic violence, friendship, romantic awakening, an absent father, and coming of age which could have become cumbersome but she deftly weaves it all together in a plausible and affecting way. show less

I don't read too much YA, but I stumbled upon Meg Medina's blog when I was looking for authors in the area with upcoming books and it feels like such a happy accident.

Piddy Sanchez doesn't know much about the students at her new school, but she finds out rather quickly that Yaqui Delgado wants to kick her ass. She's not sure why, though she thinks it has something to do with a boy. Soon Yaqui's threat is tumbling through Piddy's life, impacting the relationships she has with her mother, teachers and friends.

First, don't be thrown off by the title. It's strong. Medina mentions in this interview that she began to fight against it because she feared backlash. But the title says so much about what this book is: real, bold and not afraid show more to lay it all out. What it's not is gratuitous or gimmicky.

As a teacher, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass strikes me as an important novel for several reasons. The interview with Diversity in YA addresses this topic, but the number of titles written by or about Latinos is shockingly small, particularly compared to the number of students reading them. Medina's book works to fill a much needed space in YA literature, both for Latino students seeking a novel that reflects them back and others who can benefit from connecting with a non-white character.

The overreaching theme of bullying is addressed perfectly. So often, fictionalized bullies are characterized by constant daily harassment of their victims, when in reality there are times that a dominant presence and a few serious actions can be much more intimidating. It was refreshing to see a novel that showed a different type of bullying. I don't want to spoil the particular details, but I do feel that it's important to share the final outcome, because it's what makes this book necessary for teen readers.

Piddy's final encounter with Yaqui is very real and very current. It's something that many teenagers, parents and schools are dealing with on a regular basis, but is so severe that many wind up afraid to admit to for fear of repercussion. In Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, Medina traces Piddy's path through denial to eventually sharing what happened with school leaders. She is not a narc. She is not a snitch.

I'm sure principals will look at library requests, see a book titled Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass and immediately want to say no - but that would be a mistake. Schools should be thanking Meg Medina for writing this culturally rich, socially relevant novel that could help them a dozen times more than the anti-bullying posters plastered in the hallways. show less

This novel, narrated by Piddy Sanchez, the 16 year-old Latina protagonist, chronicles a great many traumas of adolescence: moving and entering a new school; losing a best friend who moves away; bullying; first love; learning about domestic abuse; and understanding the flaws of adults. And while some novels that feature such a cornucopia of adolescent angst sound contrived and formulaic, *Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass* succeeds in portraying these multiple misfortunes in ways that seem convincing and genuine.

In addition, Meg Medina features Piddy’s ethnicity as an integral part of the narrative without exploiting its relevance or relying on hackneyed stereotypes. Instead, through the depiction of strong yet flawed female show more characters such as Clara (Piddy’s single mother who works tirelessly to provide Piddy with a safe and supportive home) and Lila (Clara’s best friend who serves as a second mother to Piddy, protects her, and teaches her how to mature and stick up for herself) and Piddy herself, Medina succeeds in crafting an engaging narrative with a broad appeal—many adolescents (especially adolescent girls) will see themselves reflected in Piddy’s struggles to learn what became of her father, to understand friendship and first love, and to discover precisely why Yaqui Delgado wants to kick her ass. This novel straddles the line between grim melodrama and saccharine sentimentality and emerges as a well-balanced portrayal of the frustrations and triumphs of adolescence. show less

Actual rating: 3.5 stars.

I can think of few novels that I'd want to read less than a contemporary novel about a Latina teen struggling to cope with being bullied at her new school (it doesn't help that the title is horrible), but this is one of those times when I'm glad for assigned reading. It's so rare that a book like this manages to be so straight-forward without getting didactic; so authentic about the claustrophobic, trapped feeling of being bullied without painting a hopeless picture or making me cry my eyes out with horror; and has such a realistic ending (I'm looking at you for those last two, Leverage). It would be an interesting to pair with Everybody Sees the Ants in a book discussion group, because even though they are show more quite different (this one has no magical dreams or Greek-chorus ants, for example), there are parallels in how the bullied students learn to speak out and how the bullying is dealt with by adults and on a school administration level. There really is no one-size-fits-all answer to bullying, but neither is bullying an unsolvable problem, and this novel balances both truths well. show less

4.5 stars

I haven't worked in a public school in many years, but this struck me as a realistic portrayal of bullying. It doesn't end with the kind of resolution I cheer for in the movies, where the bullied triumphs over the bully in a dazzling display of genius, talent or newly developed ninja skills. But I was happy with how it was resolved. It was very persuasive, comparing Piddy's not wanting to report Yaqui to the school and Joey's mom not wanting to report her abusive husband to the police. I hope having a protagonist make the choice Piddy made will set an example for readers who are also victims of bullying.

Not my usual choice of book topics, but I read it for the library's teen book club, and I think it's going to generate good show more discussion. show less

I loved Piddy and her family and I liked that the solution to the bullying situation wasn't easy or pat. There are a lot of issues packed in here, but it's to Medina's credit that they were well balanced and none seemed extraneous. For Piddy to fall so far, so fast, all these different things happening in her life needed to collide. Medina keeps herself limited to Piddy's point of view, while rather impressively giving her secondary characters plenty of dimension.