We Were Here by Matt de la Peña is the journal of Miguel, a teenager
who is sent to a group home after an unspeakable crime. While he is there, he
meets a host of suspicious characters, from his dumb and sporadically violent
roommate, Rondell, to the psychopathic Mong. Miguel is determined to bide his
time and keep to himself until his sentence is up. That changes the night Mong
shows up in his room and convinces Rondell and him to escape the group home and
go to Mexico. Together, they travel south while trying to come to terms with
their pasts and find how three group home kids belong in the world.
Matt de
la Peña has
encountered critical acclaim, as well as prejudice, for his handling of racial
issues with his young characters. With a half-Mexican/half-White narrator
travelling with black boy and an Asian boy, the topic of race is bond to come
up. But We Were Here is more focused on the meaning of good kids and bad kids.
Peña fleshes out the characters that society normally overlooks, showing
that people can do bad things but still be good.
Peña’s books have been
banded for supposedly representing a specific group that leaves readers
different from the characters feeling isolated. But We Were Here reminds us why we read, and why we write. Miguel’s
story might be completely different from many people’s, but the feelings of
regret and irrelevance he experiences are relatable to anyone. We read to learn
about lives different than our own, while also learning something about
ourselves, showing that we are not so different from each other.
Next
on my summer reading list: Let Me In by
John Ajvide Lindquist
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