Sea Monsters

November 5, 2018
In Aridjis’s ethereal and ruminative debut, a new wave–loving teenage girl named Luisa, living in Mexico City, impulsively runs away from home with Tomás Román, an exotic and exciting boy she hardly knows. They head for Zipolite, the “Beach of the Dead” in Oaxaca, where Luisa hopes to find a missing troupe of Ukranian dwarves that she believes may be hiding in the area after escaping from a Soviet circus touring Mexico. Enmeshed in precocious Luisa’s inner world, readers follow surreal fantasies and fascinations as she learns to dwell among Zipolite’s population of nudists, beachcombers, hippies, and even a so-called merman while she searches for the dwarves. She also meditates on William Burroughs, Baudelaire, Laurteamont,
historical curiosities such as the shipwreck where researchers discovered the mysterious Antikythera Mechanism, and, above all, her favorite bands, including Joy Division and The Cure. The book functions more like a mood piece than a traditional novel, a fitting choice in rendering Luisa and Tomás’s life as runaways. Brilliant in her ability to get inside the head of her young narrator, Aridjis skillfully renders a slightly zonked-out atmosphere of mystery and the mind of a young romantic, resulting in a strange and hypnotic novel.

December 1, 2018
New fiction from the author of Asunder (2013) and Book of Clouds (2009).In the late 1980s, Luisa is 17, about to graduate from a prestigious high school in Mexico City. A scholarship student and the child of two academics, she doesn't fit in with the wealthy and aristocratic kids at her school. She finds her tribe among the outcasts who listen to Joy Division and The Cure. She finds her soul mate when the sullen, black-clad Tomás enters her life, and she finds her purpose when she reads a newspaper article about Ukrainian dwarfs who have run away from the circus on a tour of Mexico. Together, Luisa and Tomás run off to the seaside town of Zipolite in search of the missing circus performers. What Aridjis makes of this surprising story is...rather boring. The book is half over before the heroine embarks on her quest, and nothing we learn in the first half of the story explains why Luisa would do something so capricious. At the same time, it's hard to care. For a novel in which shipwrecks and the denizens of the ocean floor are recurring metaphors, this book seldom dives into the narrative. Instead of depth, we get a baroque style that doesn't add much to our enjoyment or understanding. Early on, Luisa says of Tomás: "He had started out as a snag, a snag in the composition; from one moment to the next, there was no other way of putting it, he had begun to appear in my life back in the city. And since all appearances are ultimately disturbances, this disturbance needed investigating." The novel is full of this sort of complicated language, and the story seldom benefits from it. References to 1980s punk and New Wave will be nostalgic landmarks for many readers, but we learn very little about Luisa beyond her taste in music. After Luisa realizes that the Tomás of her daydreams is nothing like the real boy, she goes looking for connection among the denizens of Zipolite and finds herself caught up in trouble she had not anticipated. There are eccentric characters and sensational incidents, but we never go below the surface.A shallow coming-of-age fable.

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February 1, 2019

In this coming-of-age story, teenage Luisa runs away from home in Mexico City to the Zipolite beach on the Pacific coast with a boy from school named Tomás Roman. At the beach, famous for its natural beauty and free-spirited vacationers, Luisa finds refuge from city, school, and family life. She quickly realizes that she really doesn't have any feelings for Tomás, even as a mysterious stranger attracts her attention. Meanwhile, she becomes immersed in the ways of the sea, and as she walks near the waves one night she glimpses some of the missing Ukrainian dwarfs who escaped from a traveling Soviet circus. This event, as well as other surreal episodes, give this novel its unusual power and charm. VERDICT Written by a young and highly regarded Mexican American author whose debut novel, Book of Clouds, won a major prize in France, this work deftly communicates the wonder and amazement of discovery characterizing Luisa's inner and outer worlds. Aridjis is an accomplished wordsmith, and readers will find themselves rereading many passages in this wise, marvelous novel.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2019

This dreamy yet unsettling coming-of-age story set in 1980s Mexico focuses on the small, surreal mysteries that shape our lives. Luisa longs to escape the detachment and boredom of everyday life. When a new love interest, Tomás, offers to take her to the Oaxaca coast, she goes with barely a second thought. The impulsive romance quickly fades, and the two drift apart. Luisa spends her time at the beach, learning the ways of the sea and searching for a troupe of Ukrainian dwarfs who defected from a traveling circus. She meets a mysterious stranger who takes the last of her attention away from Tomás, and discovers that getting to know someone often leads to disappointment. Luisa makes wise and insightful observations on the nature of change, with horror and glamour. Aridjis depicts the turbulence of adolescence sensitively. Teens will connect with Luisa's fears, her disillusionment, and her attraction to mystery. Although the story is timeless, the soundtrack of Depeche Mode, Siouxsie Sioux, and Joy Division creates an evocative sense of place. VERDICT Mature teen readers will appreciate Aridjis's writing and Luisa's emotional journey.-Heather Waddell, Abbot Public Library, Marblehead, MA

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2018
In 1988, on a seeming whim, 17-year-old Luisa runs away from her home in Mexico City, accompanied by Tom�s, a boy she scarcely knows. In a whimsical search for a group of Ukrainian dwarfs who have escaped from a Russian circus, the two travel to Oaxaca and its beach, Zipolite, the beach of the dead. Living rudely there, the two soon drift apart, and Luisa, at a beachfront bar, meets an enigmatic man she calls the Merman, whom she believes comes from a foreign country. She falls in love but then discovers the disquieting truth about the Merman. Soon thereafter, her father, who has been searching for her, discovers Luisa on the beach and takes her home. Fin. The critically acclaimed Mexican American author writes stylishly (beaches are a conversation between the elements; weeds are like the soil's unbrushed hair ) but without drama. A description of Luisa's mood, a gloomy monotony, comes dangerously close to describing the book itself, though it does succeed in painting a portrait of Mexico at the time. Fans of character-driven fiction will find enough to like here, in spite of the relatively immobile story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)