Mexican High
A Novel
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
The daughter of an American diplomat, Mila has spent her childhood moving from country to country. When her mother is reassigned to Mexico City for Mila’s senior year of high school, Mila has no idea what to expect. Mexico seems to be a country with the ultimate freedoms: the wealthy students at her private international school—the sons and daughters of Mexico’s ruling class—party hard at exclusive clubs, dress in expensive clothing, and see more of their housekeepers than they do of their globe-trotting parents. But Mila has more in common with them than they know: her father, whose identity has been kept from her, is a high-ranking politician with whom Mila’s mother had a one-night stand in her hippie days. Now Mila is determined to discover who he is, whatever the cost may be.
Mexican High is a coming-of-age story about identity, belonging, and first love. In a setting rife with sex, drugs, and political corruption, it is also a revealing look at elite Mexican society and its freedoms, dangers, and excesses. Monroy’s flawless evocation of the brink of adulthood, in many ways mirrored by the turmoil of Mexico City itself, makes this a truly memorable debut.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Monroy's spirited, overreaching debut tracks a rocky coming-of-age. Milagro M rquez's father is a wealthy, powerful Mexico City native, but her mother, a California-raised Jew, who works for the foreign service, won't tell Milagro who he is. As mother and daughter move from Clinton-era Washington, D.C., to Mexico City for her mother's latest posting, Milagro sees a chance to seek him out. Thrust into the heady, drug-fueled world of diplomatic offspring and Mexican rich kids at her exclusive private school, Milagro quickly transforms from a "good girl" into a rebellious club kid, spending chunks of time with fresas, or "Eurotrash with Mexican passports." Her late teen precocity soon puts her at odds with her overbearing mother, who embarks on a series of far-fetched schemes to get Milagro back on track. Monroy makes Milagro a terrific observer of telling details, but her voice isn't built for the larger points Monroy tries to make about the contradictions of teenage life and the economic fragmentation of Mexican society. The result is more a fictive diary than a satisfying novel.
