Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Alexandra

Fresh Off the Boat by Melissa de la Cruz
Vicenza is having a hard time adjusting to life in San Francisco. She was unfairly torn from her well-off life and friend in Manila, Philippines, and forced to emigrate to California, where she now shops at the Salvation Army, works in her family's cafeteria in Sears on the weekends, and is ignored by the snooty girls at her new school. Her life gets so bad that she actually goes to the movies with her family on a Friday night. Finally, V, as her friends call her, befriends Isobel, the French exchange student, who helps V see that if the other girls don't want her, she doesn't want them, and also helps Vincenza snag the boy she wants. With excellently written characters and sprinkled with emails of her new "glamorous" (fictional) life to her friend back home in Manila, this book will be relatable for any girl who has ever felt out of place.