The Education of Margot Sanchez

November 21, 2016
Margot Sanchez, “the great brown hope” of her family, is caught between the wealthy, white world of Somerset Prep, the private school she attends, and that of her “Rich Adjacent” Latino family, which owns two supermarkets in the Bronx. Margot changed her personal style in order to befriend the popular girls at Somerset, and she’s desperate to spend the summer with them in the Hamptons. Instead, she is stuck stocking shelves and working the deli counter at the supermarket—punishment for stealing her father’s credit card for a shopping spree—and trying to reconnect with the friends she left behind. Debut novelist Rivera doesn’t sugarcoat Margot’s conflicted life as the teenager juggles the sexist attitudes from the men in her family, the judgments from “cashieristas” at the store and her party-happy Somerset friends alike, romantic conflicts involving boys from school and the neighborhood, and family crises that arise. Margot makes mistakes, misplaces her trust, and gradually reestablishes who she is in an emotional story about class, race, hard work, and finding one’s place. Ages 14–up. Agent: Eddie Schneider, Jabberwocky Literary.

Narrator Almarie Guerra tells this story of a summer filled with issues of ethnicity, class, sexism, drugs, and the everyday miseries of adolescence. Margot is trying to put the best spin on her punishment of working at one of her family's supermarkets instead of playing in the Hamptons with her private school friends. Guerra's earnest and vulnerable tone helps smooth over Margot's initial spoiled complaints. Her neutral accent for Margot contrasts with the realistic accents of her Puerto Rican parents, peppered with perfect bursts of Spanish, and her South Bronx co-workers. The false bubbly tone of the dialogue when Margot talks to her school friends shoots straight to the heart of anyone who's ever tried desperately to fit in. Listeners will find plenty of drama, heartache, and redemption in this story. S.T.C. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine