Review of the Day: The Reel Wish by Yamile Saied Méndez

The Reel Wish
By Yamile Saied Méndez
Tu Books (an imprint of Lee & Low Books)
$22.95
ISBN: 9781643796437
Ages 9-12
On shelves now
Simultaneous Release in Spanish

When you’re an adult that reads children’s books as part of their job, you have to constantly try to keep your grown-up instincts in check. The goal is to read the book the same way a kid might. Sometimes that’s easy and oftentimes it’s hard. Really, it depends entirely on the book. That said, I had absolutely ZERO difficulty getting into Yamile Saied Méndez’s The Reel Wish recently. Part of that has to do with the fact that when I was the heroine, Florencia’s, age, I took ballet and then took Scottish country dancing and Irish step dance. Not competitively or anything, but enough so that when I discovered that Ms. Méndez had written a book about a girl who does the exact same thing (minus the Scottish country dances) I was immediately intrigued. The Black Swan-like premise was intriguing too, but as I started to get into the book I was struck by the strength of the main character. She’s dragged through the mud (metaphorically) and gets right back up again. The book is also incredibly readable. Un-put-downable. A little more complex than its cover implies, this is a title to hand to that kid that always has to be the best, even if it kills them.

It was supposed to be the greatest moment of her life. After years of yearning and hoping, Florencia has won the coveted role of Clara in her ballet school’s production of The Nutcracker. But when an ill-timed panic attack destroys her ballet career in one fell swoop, she’s devastated. Worse, while she’s fine that her best friend Selena has the part, something’s changing about Selena. She’s becoming cold, rude, and hanging out with the bullies the two of them used to despise. Yet the pull of dance is strong, and soon Florencia is discovering a new kind: Irish step dancing. Will she just fall into the same bad patterns, or is this the kind of dance she needs to be happy once again?

Have you ever disliked a character so much that when they finally get their comeuppance in a book there’s this nasty little part of you that wishes it was more? And worse? Worsely more? Morely worse? I had that with this book. On the one hand I am a grown woman who should not take pleasure in the suffering of middle schoolers. I acknowledge that Florencia’s friend Selena is going through some stuff of her own. But honestly? The 12-year-old in me read this book and didn’t care. Considering what Selena puts Florencia through, I wanted to see her go DOWN, man! Who cares if that is not a mature reaction? I found the author awfully accommodating of Selena. For those kids who, like myself, howl for revenge, they will not get that level of satisfaction. Though, honestly, I feel as if Selena’s mother was far worse to blame. Selena’s dealing with her parents’ divorce and her mother’s hyperdrive focus on getting a new man and moving in with him. Her mother, meanwhile, is ignoring her daughter, then making horrid cutting remarks about her own best friend’s daughter in earshot of the girl herself. NOT cool, madame!

There is a technique in writing where you make your hero feel an outsized amount of punishment so that your readers will sympathize with them more readily. And certainly Florencia’s suffering often felt over-the-top. I’m no fan of books with bullies, generally, but even I couldn’t tear myself away from this writing once it got going. In this particular case, I listened to the audiobook. It’s read by the excellent Maria Liatis, who brings quite a bit of verve to Florencia and her story. Still, I remember thinking to myself as I listened, “Why am I so into this? Isn’t this just another bully book?” It is and it isn’t. As I say, Florencia’s suffering is so outsized that after a while you’re just wondering what could possibly happen to her next. I should say that while the ex-friend Selena has some depth to her, the other bullying girls are fairly two-dimensional from the book’s start to its finish, rendering them less interesting. I did wish that the author could have spent a little more time on their backstories (or even included just one moment when you got a glimpse of their humanity) but no go.

Since I read a fair number of middle grade novels in a given year, I start to notice trends and similarities amongst them. In The Reel Wish, Florencia is taught a grounding technique by her therapist. Called the 54321 technique, when you’re feeling anxious or stressed you identify five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. It’s used to excellent effect not simply in this book, but also in Kate Messner’s fellow title The Trouble with Heroes. Anxious world that we live in today, it’s hard not to hope that when authors simultaneously share good advice, some kid somewhere may start to take it. And if that kid happens to read both of these books this year? Even better! I also liked comparing this book to It’s All or Nothing, Vale, by Andrea Beatriz Arango, since in both cases you’ve a heroine that can no longer do the thing she used to love most in precisely the same way, and has to learn what else is out there for her.

The librarians I work with are entirely gaga for this book, I should mention. Some of them said that they liked it “in spite of the cover”, which I take issue with. When I was a young ballerina-turned-Irish-dancer myself, this would have been the cover I gravitated towards without hesitation. Then I would have picked it up, read just a few sentences, and been fully hooked by the narrative as well. The author has a way of effectively putting you into the head of Florencia right from the get-go. Whether she’s wrong or right (and she’s plenty of both at different times) she is always interesting. I haven’t even gotten into how difficult it is, for any writer, to make a reader understand why a character loves a certain kind of art. So good it feels effortless, The Reel Wish is bound for bookshelves and to be read and reread multiple times by its intended audience. Step to it and grab yourself a copy.

On shelves now.

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