The Everything I Have Lost

In this sensitively told novel, Julia—soulful and yearning, yet also angry and sometimes hard-talking—feels trapped between her parents. She has grown up in Juárez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso and known for its violence, its drug cartels, and for the girls and women who disappear there. In compelling diary reflections that follow her from ages 12 to 15, Julia’s narration swings between universal teen preoccupations—worries about clothes, her first day at school, a new house, boys—and extreme fears of being shot on the street and wondering if her father works for the narcos (one her mother shares and which causes tension between Julia’s parents). Eventually, the environment becomes so dangerous that Mamá sends Julia and her little brother to live with family members in El Paso. In an author’s note, Zéleny, oft-published in her native language of Spanish, explains that she first wrote this U.S. middle grade debut in Spanish, then rewrote it in English. Conveying the grim challenges Julia faces, Zéleny creates a fierce, funny, and full-of-feeling protagonist whose staccato diary entries pull the reader along. Ages 10–14. (Sept.)