3.5 
 This book was good, it had good bones and was almost a YA told from the perspective of the parents which are going through real serious issues. I think Henriquez tapped into really great themes and had really great stories to tell however I think with such heavy subjects I wanted a far more lyrical and literary prose. It needed that tightening to really take this novel to the next level and I was left craving for more. This is a truly sad book, it ends in an impactful note however I needed more richness of prose to pull this to a truly admirable level. I'm not sure if Henriquez is that type of writer but adding a good 50 pages just to craft this story would've brought more dimensions to it. There was also lack of resolution specifically to Mayor's family life, where did they leave of? The end felt a bit sloppy and lacking, I wanted more character study of characters which left a bad taste such as Mayor's father and his relationship with his wife which is clearly abusive. The 'bad' characters were all bad and the non-Hispanics were mostly disdainful and racist against Hispanics. What takes a book to another level is placing the reader into a moral conundrum where the lines between good and evil are blurred and between what it right and wrong are challenged and this book missed that mark. In short, I wanted more from it and it just didn't deliver.