Genesis Sorto

I’m a latina, around the same age Julia is throughout the book. I read the description of the book and found the first few pages really interesting, so I stupidly chose it for my independent reading book in English Class. Not gonna lie, the exposition of the book was pretty good, I was hooked immediately and found Julia pretty funny…. that was until I kept reading. I mean, I understand Julia to an extent. I don’t have the best relationships with my parents either. And her sister just died she’s obviously gonna be hurt, but that doesn’t give her an excuse to treat others like straight up crap. Calling Julia judgmental would be an understatement. There’s so much in this book that made me want to put it down. (I obviously couldn’t, it was for a project and I stuck to it.) I HATED how she would use the excuse of “my sister just died” and “my parents hate me” to justify her wrong actions towards other people. Yeah, this is a reason for her behavior but not an excuse. I don’t have the best life myself but I’d NEVER take my anger out on other peoples, and no good person would either. Julia’s just a bad person, but she’s so self absorbed she fails to see it and victimizes herself. Everyone else seems to be a villain. She also seems to have a strong superiority complex. In her eyes she’s so different and special, everyone else is normal and basic. She’s just “not like other girls.” Look, I’m all for protagonists being unique and not fitting the standard, but Julia shouldn’t have put down others who did. She makes horrible comments about people throughout the book I just hated it so much. Her hatred towards Juanga at the beginning of the book was so unwarranted and she questioned why Lorena got mad at her? Overall, Julia’s just insufferable. I did find a few things about this book being relatable, one of which being the title of the book. I actually emphasized with Julia the majority of the time her parents would compare her to her sister, or even would question the way she was. Unfortunately, all the other flaws drown this out so I can’t give it more than two stars. I’m not finished with the book yet, I have about 70 pages left but I certainly do not have high hopes at all.