3.5
We Were Here
ByPublisher Description
Newbery Award-winning author Matt de la Peña's We Were Here is a "fast, funny, smart, and heartbreaking" novel [Booklist].
When it happened, Miguel was sent to Juvi. The judge gave him a year in a group home—said he had to write in a journal so some counselor could try to figure out how he thinks. The judge had no idea that he actually did Miguel a favor. Ever since it happened, his mom can’t even look at him in the face. Any home besides his would be a better place to live.
But Miguel didn’t bet on meeting Rondell or Mong or on any of what happened after they broke out. He only thought about Mexico and getting to the border to where he could start over. Forget his mom. Forget his brother. Forget himself.
Life usually doesn’ t work out how you think it will, though. And most of the time, running away is the quickest path right back to what you’re running from.
From the streets of Stockton to the beaches of Venice, all the way to the Mexican border, We Were Here follows a journey of self-discovery by a boy who is trying to forgive himself in an unforgiving world.
"Fast, funny, smart, and heartbreaking...The contemporary survival adventure will keep readers hooked."-Booklist
"This gripping story about underprivileged teens is a rewarding read."-VOYA
"A furiously paced and gripping novel."-Publishers Weekly
"A story of friendship that will appeal to teens and will engage the most reluctant readers."-Kirkus Reviews
An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Readers
An ALA-YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers
A Junior Library Guild Selection
When it happened, Miguel was sent to Juvi. The judge gave him a year in a group home—said he had to write in a journal so some counselor could try to figure out how he thinks. The judge had no idea that he actually did Miguel a favor. Ever since it happened, his mom can’t even look at him in the face. Any home besides his would be a better place to live.
But Miguel didn’t bet on meeting Rondell or Mong or on any of what happened after they broke out. He only thought about Mexico and getting to the border to where he could start over. Forget his mom. Forget his brother. Forget himself.
Life usually doesn’ t work out how you think it will, though. And most of the time, running away is the quickest path right back to what you’re running from.
From the streets of Stockton to the beaches of Venice, all the way to the Mexican border, We Were Here follows a journey of self-discovery by a boy who is trying to forgive himself in an unforgiving world.
"Fast, funny, smart, and heartbreaking...The contemporary survival adventure will keep readers hooked."-Booklist
"This gripping story about underprivileged teens is a rewarding read."-VOYA
"A furiously paced and gripping novel."-Publishers Weekly
"A story of friendship that will appeal to teens and will engage the most reluctant readers."-Kirkus Reviews
An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Readers
An ALA-YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers
A Junior Library Guild Selection
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesWe Were Here Reviews
3.5
🌻Awwbree🌻📚
Created 28 days agoShare
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Kiwi Smoothie
Created 5 months agoShare
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“We Were Here is supposed to be a realistic fiction young adult novel, and it's one of the lousiest ones I've read in years. It was published in 2009, and the main character Miguel, whose name is forgettable since the novel is in first person, is one of the most unlikable narrators you'll ever find. We aren't told that the reason Miguel went to Juvie is because he accidentally killed his brother Diego with a butter knife. The whole premise is unbelievable because they were rough-housing at home and somehow Diego trips and falls on Miguel's butter knife and the knife goes through his heart.
So for the whole story, Miguel is carrying around this guilt of killing his brother and he winds up in a group home in San Jose. He acts really standoffish in the group home, but he gets a roommate named Rondell who's an illiterate nationally ranked basketball player with special needs, and he meets a sociopathic Chinese-American boy named Mong with six months to live because of a imperfectly matched kidney transplant. Then one day, Mong's cousin Meili breaks them out of the group home and Miguel steals around $700 of petty cash from the group home funds and they have some idea of going to Mexico, but Meili takes them to San Francisco for nefarious reasons, but Mong gives her the slip and takes Rondell and Miguel to the beach and walks into the water to commit suicide since his kidney transplant was going to kill him anyway. Miguel reads his psychiatric file and finds out Mong is super anti-social and how his dad killed his mom and tried to kill Mong before killing himself. Unbelievable, right?
Then Miguel thinks he'll still go to Mexico, so he takes Rondell down to San Ysidro by the border, and then he changes his mind because he's a coward and can't speak Spanish since he's only half-Mexican and his mom who raised him is White. In San Diego, he attends a college party where he gets scammed by a girl he tried to hook up with and she steals all the petty cash that he stole from the group home. So out of money, Miguel panhandles some money from strangers pretending to be a basketball team with Rondell that is in need of funds. He takes Rondell on a bus to his grandparents' farm in Sacramento or somewhere around there, and makes back the $700 of petty cash that he stole. And then Miguel tells Rondell the whole story about how he killed his brother Diego, and Rondell promises Miguel's grandparents that he would look out for Miguel.
Once Miguel accepts the fact that his grandparents and his mom have forgiven him for killing Diego, he takes Rondell back to the group home in San Jose, returns the $700 he stole, and resolves to repay his debt to society by serving out his sentence in the group home. Ironically, the group home takes him back with no penalties for that spree whatsoever. Does this sound like a realistic plot to you? The writing was all right, but the plot was jejune and the main character's thoughts were arrogant and condescending, particularly toward Rondell's happy-go-lucky attitude throughout their journey that ended up back where they started.”Bryan Castaneda
Created 6 months agoShare
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“Loved this book truly a good read”
Holli
Created 6 months agoShare
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About Matt de la Peña
Matt de la Peña is the first Mexican American author to win the Newbery Medal. He attended the University of the Pacific on a basketball scholarship and went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at San Diego State University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he teaches creative writing. We Were Here is his third novel. Look for his other books, Ball Don’t Lie, Mexican WhiteBoy, I Will Save You, The Living, which was named a Pura Belpré Honor Book, and The Hunted, all available from Delacorte Press. You can also visit him at mattdelapena.com and follow @mattdelapena on Twitter.
Other books by Matt de la Peña
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