Review: Life, After - Sarah Darer Littman

Where I got it: ARC from my collection
Rating: 4 stars
Cover Rating: 4 stars (Pretty and nice colors. I don't see it relating to the book that much, but I still like it.)
Genre: Young Adult
Publication Date: July 1, 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Page Count: 276 p.

There was a time when Dani considered herself just another, normal, girl. However, after the crisis her father became a different man and with that their lives started to change for the worse. When her father finally accepts the fact that they aren't doing very well in Buenos Aires he moves them all to America. Here Dani and her family must start over. Dani has to think and speak in a foreign language, she  has to leave behind all her friends and her boyfriend and try to make new ones. She finds friends in very unlikely places and learns what it means to be connect with someone through a similar experience.

This was an enjoyable read. I really appreciated the little snippets of Spanish thrown in here and there.  It would certainly help you if you know some basic Spanish, but if you don't it doesn't detract from the story really. At times this book was really slow going(maybe I just didn't feel like reading) but I always wanted to know what Dani had to face next. I can't imagine having to up and leave your country and have to go to a place where everything is different. I really enjoyed reading about Dani and her life. It was nice to see the similarities and differences between her culture and American culture. Though she was suffering on this very global scale, she still had all the suffering that comes with adolescence. She was teased and had crushes and boyfriends and had to make new friends in a new place. This story really shows how sometimes you should really find out what is going on with a person to make them the way they are before instantly judging them. If you like contemporary fiction that speaks of other cultures then this book is certainly for you.

First Line:
"Normal kids were happy when the bell rang at the end of the school day."

Favorite Line:
"I wondered if this was how a snake felt right before it shed its skin and slithered along without everything that identified it before."