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Summary
Summary
It all starts when Marisa picks up the wrong cell phone. When she goes to return it, she feels something she's never felt before, something a bit like . . . love.
But Marisa and Rene aren't exactly a match made in heaven. For one thing, Marisa is a chola , and she isn't petite; she's a lot of girl, and she's not ashamed of it. Skinny Rene, however, gangles like a sackful of elbows and wears a calculator on his belt. In other words, he's a geek. So why can't Marisa stay away from him?
Award-winning author Gary Soto deftly captures all the angst, expectation, and humor that comes with first love in this swift, lighthearted romance.
Author Notes
Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952, and raised in Fresno California. He graduated from Roosevelt High School and attended Fresno City College, graduating in 1974 with an English degree. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including The Nation, Plouqhshares, The Iowa Review, Ontario Review and Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in Poets in Person. He is one of the youngest poets to appear in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.
Soto has received the Discovery-The Nation Prize, the U.S. Award of the International Poetry Forum, The California Library Association's John and Patricia Beatty Award twice, a Recogniton of Merit from the Claremont Graduate School for Baseball in April, the Silver Medal from The Commonwealth Club of California, and the Tomás Rivera Prize, in addition to fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts twice, and the California Arts Council.
For ITVS, he produced the film The Pool Party, which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal. Soto wrote the libretto for an opera titled Nerd-landia for the The Los Angeles Opera. In 1999 he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes. He serves as Young People's Ambassador for the California Rural Legal Assistance and the United Farm Workers of America.
Soto is the author of ten poetry collections for adults, with New and Selected Poems a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His recollections Living Up the Street received a Before Columbus Foundation 1985 American Book Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-10-Soto's novel (Harcourt, 2006) tells the story of Marisa, a tough Latina, and her surprising attraction to nerdy Rene, "a lamb with no sins except bad taste in clothes." Opposites in every way, the couple overcome obstacles in their relationship, including his abusive mother and her explosive temper. In the end, their romance brings out the best in each of them. Soto's simple, straightforward writing style, featuring lots of dialogue and teenage slang, is appropriately expressed by Barrie Kreinik's crisp, clear narration. The characters are easily differentiated, with appropriate accents for the Spanish words that naturally occur in conversations. The print version includes a helpful glossary. Listeners will understand the sense of most words by the narrator's tone, although hearing Marisa described as a "chola" won't quite express the ferocity of "gangster" to English-speaking listeners. The search for identity plays out here among stereotypes of checked-out urban youth from the barrio and chess-playing nerds from the magnet school across town Listeners will root for Marisa and Rene to beat the odds and live happily ever after.-Toby Rajput, National Louis University, Skokie, IL (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
When tough talking 14-year-old Marissa least expects it, she feels an attraction to the most unlikely of boys. An unplanned meeting between Marissa and Rene, a player whose only game is chess, causes sparks to fly. Marissa may start out believing that "Dang, the boy's a nerd," but she finds herself attracted to his manners and to this boy "whose bicycle was too big for him and whose eyeglasses were crooked on his cute small face." In somewhat of an abrupt move, she transfers to a magnet school to be closer to him ("far up north where the Sierras peeked through the valley smog"). Marissa and her "muy wimpy" novio learn a thing or two about each other and themselves when he coaxes her to audition with him for a part in Romeo and Juliet. Their relationship develops slowly and credibly, and Marissa, in the novel's refreshing approach, soon realizes that she'd rather have nerdy Rene for a boyfriend than many of the macho guys she has come across. Soto accurately depicts popularity and stereotypes in high school, while conveying a melting pot of cultures. The teens' struggles shine through with simplicity and authenticity. Soto fluidly incorporates Spanish words into the dialogue (and ends with a glossary). He successfully bridges gender and cultural issues that affect teens, while pinpointing details that portray life in California's Central Valley. Ages 12-up. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Excerpts
Excerpts
At fourteen Marisa welcomed any excuse to miss school. But today she had a good reason for cutting class. Alicia, her best friend, lay in the hospital with a broken leg and a broken heart, all because her boyfriend had crashed his parents' car when a tire blew. The leg had broken in the crash, but her heart had broken when the glove compartment opened on impact and shot out a photo of stupid Roberto with his arm around another girl. Marisa was off to give her homegirl a meaningful hug. "He's such a shisty rat," she growled as she pictured that no-good Roberto, an average-looking fool whose fingers were always orange from Cheetos. She, too, savored that junk food snack, but-she argued-at least she always licked her fingers clean. But not him! Stupid jerk! Big pendejo! How could Alicia stand his face? She was always treating him to food and paying for gas for their car rides into the country. Marisa's anger was deflected to a passing station wagon that nearly hit her as she started across the street. "You estpido!" she spat as she threw her hands into the air in anger. The pair of eyes she saw in the rearview mirror were old and could have belonged to any of her six aunts. Ay, Chihuahua, how Marisa's grandmother bore children, all female, all large, all different as pepper from salt. Marisa admonished herself for yelling at the elderly driver. "Maybe it was one of mis tas," she told herself, and her rage dissolved. Her thoughts returned to Alicia tucked away in a hospital bed and then quickly to Roberto, the rat. If my boyfriend was cheating on me . . . She was brooding when she remembered that she didn't have a boyfriend. So what was the worry? She found herself shrugging and thinking she'd never have a boyfriend as she peeked at her stomach with its roll of fat. "Room 438," she told herself as the salmon-colored hospital came into view. "That's where my homegirl is. She's gonna be hecka surprised." Marisa swallowed her fear. Hospitals were where you went to die. She remembered Grandma Olga's last days. Her grandmother, struggling with cancer, rolled from her side to her stomach to sitting on the bed and dangling her rope-thin legs. Dying, Marisa had thought then, was a matter of getting comfortable.Marisa rode up in an elevator between two male nurses with paper bootees on their shoes. She herself had considered becoming a nurse, but that was years before, when she had dolls whose arms would fall off, and she would stick the arms back on only to have them fall off again. The dolls, she remembered, lay under her bed, their eyes open but not taking in a whole lot. The elevator opened with a sigh. Marisa stepped out, glancing slowly left and then right. "Room 438," she muttered as she cut a glance to a man in a wheelchair pushing himself up the hallway by the strength of his thin arms. A bottle of clear fluid hung on a steel pole behind him, and clear tubes were delivering that fluid into his arms. Marisa grimaced. She would hate to have Excerpted from Accidental Love by Gary Soto All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.