Meg medina merci suarez5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() Marci lives with her hardworking, responsible parents and seventeen year old brother, Roli. This multi-generational family live on the same block in three casitas, one after the other. Her family is tightly knit and always in each other’s business, while offering unwavering support and help without hesitation. Merci’s family is working class Cuban American. We start out with our main character, Mercedes Suarez (Merci), a sixth-grader at the elite Florida Seaward Pines Academy located in what the author hints to be Palm Beach County. Lots of Spanish words and phrases make this book particularly relatable and more easily comprehended by English language learners. This book came at the right time in history, when what you’re writing about, rather than how you write it, wins awards. Finally! This book did not win the medal for its literary excellence. What was the author talking about? I didn’t figure out the point of the story until I was 3/4 through when she finally wrote a few sentences in a row that followed a thread that continued until the ending. I found myself reading and re-reading paragraphs many times. So, here we have a 2019 Newberry Medal winner that is, at best, a mediocre story with mediocre plot advancement, little character development, poor transitions, choppy writing, lack of focus, too many characters and situations with way too much telling and not enough showing, and too many details in all the wrong places. Book Review: Merci Suarez Changes Gears (2019) by Meg Medina (Middle Grade) ![]()
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