I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The survivor always writes the history. Pedro, the in-book pseudonym for Dr. Federico Erebia, a retired physician, who is also an artist, a woodworker, an author, and an illustrator, here tells the story of the horrifying, abusive family life led by himself and his late brother Daniel. Their boyhood having roughly coincided with my own, and their immigrant parents being much like the immigrant parents I knew in South Texas, the dichos and the interspersed poetry with prose, the cultural touchstones were all bone-deep familiar. What added to my sense of coming home was the young men's comings-out, internal and public, between themselves quietly and subtly; being gay in a deeply religious and brutally homophobic culture, during the peak terror of the AIDS crisis, only added to my anxious sense of identification with them.

What makes this story ideal for its youthful intended market is the absolute honesty and clarity of Author Erebia's prose; he couldn't tell a lie in these words, or even invent too much, because the ring of truth is absent when he does. He also never softens any blow, or pretends what hurt wasn't that bad, or helped grow him up, as other authors have in pursuing similar themes. He never takes the tack that it will all turn out okay; his belovèd brother dies of AIDS.

Love does not conquer all. What Love does is help one bear all that misery hateful bigots heap on you from before you know why they hate you. This is honest and it is helpful to young people to be told the truth. Things can hurt so bad in the moment that no one is surprised that you would consider ending your life. No one who's experienced hatred and rejection, however it's presented, is at all ever going to judge you for that. I do enjoy a story that tells young gay boys and girls all that, as well as implicitly supports the knowledge of no you aren't imagining it; yes, they do mean it; but crucially importantly you can and are wanted by others you haven't met to survive all of it. This story says loud and clear the truth: IT DOES GET BETTER.

Why I only rated it 4 stars of five is I found myself almost chanting the metrical dichos and poetic snippets, in that read-aloud to infants cadence. I don't enjoy that sensation. It's not aimed at me, so I present this as a reason, not an excuse. Others have other ideas about this facet of storytelling, and it works in the rap/hiphop/modern spoken word generation a treat. For me and those of my tastes, exercise caution in your consumption. ( )