So, I think that the summary of this book may have been pretty misleading. There's a lot of emphasis on the forbidden love aspect of the story, and that really was part of the story, but that's more of a background to the story. It's more about Pearl and the mess that seems to be her life. With her dad leaving, and her mom trying to deal with it, them moving onto the avocado...farm? Pearls best friend kind of...out-growing her, not to mention the problem Robby is having throughout the story. 
 Adding Amiel into the story just kind of sends Pearl over the edge, giving her a little bit of an escape. It wasn't an overkill teenage forbidden romance story. It wasn't even really sweet. To me it seemed like a crush, and the fact that she wasn't really allowed to have him making him more attractive to her. And in the end, it seems that this infatuation with Amiel cost her a lot more than was necessary. A LOT. (view spoiler)[She loses her uncle because of her need for Amiel. She nearly loses her own life. She's not talking to her best friend by the end of the book. She loses the love from her aunt and cousin. Her and her mom don't get along (the last thing that was mentioned about her mother was her driving away on the back of a motorcycle.) and, oh yeah, she loses Amiel. Though, the end is quite heartfelt. The part about her going to Mexico. It seems that she could have avoided a lot of trouble AND saved Amiel if not for some of her choices. (hide spoiler)] 
 Not to say that this story wasn't profound and amazing. The writing was just beautiful. GOR-JUS :P. It made everything about this story more profound and more beautiful. It was descriptive and you knew what Pearl was feeling, but it wasn't adjective overkill or three pages of "His black hair was glistening in the sun and his muscles rippled under the soft fabric of his blindingly white t-shirt." If you could see me now I would be rolling my eyes at the sentence I just wrote. Thankfully, this book wasn't full of that. THANK YOU. 
 Overall, I think the book was really good. The ending was good, it was sweet and I was like "Yay!" I would recommend it. I liked it. I'm having trouble deciding if it's one of those live it or hate it books. I think I've decided that it's a likeable book as long as you don't mind endnigs that aren't all warm and fuzzy and happy and everything works out for the best. Though everything does appear ok towards the very very end.