LOBIZONA - Romina Garber

5 stars

Knocked my socks off. Argentinian lore, werewolves and witches, football (soccer), concepts of gender roles, identity, belonging, Other, and the plight of the undocumented.... this was wonderful.

Concept: ★★★★★
First 50 pages: ★★
Plot/Pacing: ★★★★
Enjoyment: ★★★★★

Manu is an undocumented Argentinian immigrant living in secret in Miami with her mother. Manu's life is a double-edged sword of secrets—on the one hand, Manu and her mother are in the USA and in hiding from the government, and on the other hand, Manu is also forced into hiding by her own mother because of her unique eyes and an unknown threat from Argentina—the real reason they're living off the government grid.

Manu has golden, luminous eyes with a starburst pattern of silver in the center.

Manu's eyes have made her life a living cage. Her mother won't let her go anywhere, she can't make friends, and everywhere she goes it has to be daylight so that she can wear her mirrored sunglasses. Manu's father had dangerous friends, her mother always said, and they've never stopped looking for Manu and her mother. With her father's eyes, Manu has no choice.

Then Manu's mother is captured by the ICE, America's immigration unit. In the rush of capture, her mother screams at her to flee, to stay in hiding.

Running away from the city on the back of a mysterious pick up truck, she takes an unexpected trip into the wilds of the Everglades and happens upon something she literally can't believe: there's a secret community in a magical mangrove forest, and ALL of the people in it have Manu's luminous eyes.

What's a girl to do, but join them? Manu has no idea what she's in for. (Hint: werewolves and witches and other dimensions, oh MY!)

My thoughts:
AMAZING. I think it's safe to say that this is one of my favorite YA fantasy reads of 2020. This was fresh—and filled with so many unique spins on fantasy tropes that I was shooketh. I loved learning more about Argentinan and Latin American culture, especially as it related to their myths, and I LOVED where the author's imagination took us. (We always need more alternate dimensions in our fantasy.)

Now, to address a mild elephant in the room: some other reviews of this book mention that it's filled with traditional YA tropes and is predictable. I'd like to (politely) disagree, and here's why:

-This is an Argentinian/Latinx/immigrant narrative. Our diverse stories did NOT get a chance to get in on the YA action at the start of the genre in the 2000s and 2010s—so for many of our diverse reads, they're playing with some of these tropes for the first time, and they're writing them for an audience that never saw themselves in Harry Potter, Kiss of Deception, Hunger Games, etc etc etc. YES this story has the magical school trope. So what? I still found enough unique identifiers to set it apart from the rest. YES this story has similar plot devices to other YA fantasies. So what? (No shade, just honest questions. I think our community is sometimes quite hard on YA fantasies.)

-Yes, there's a love interest identified quite early on in the story. So what? While the initial interaction might seem to be instalove or trope-filled, the author immediately back pedals and allows the story to take over. Again, I thought this was well done and deviated enough from the tropes to be relevant.

I could go on, but those are two of the main points. In short, I thought this story was beautiful, extremely relevant to modern American and Latin American concerns (immigration, ICE, etc.), and a fantastic series opener with a great take on werewolves, or the Argentinian lobizones. Also, the quoteable portions of this book - gah. So great.

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books for an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.