Princess of Las Pulgas

McKenzie, C. Lee. The Princess of Las Pulgas. Lodi, NJ: Westside Books, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10735832]

Booktalk:
After the death of her father, Carlie's mom has to sell the beach-front home that Carlie and her brother grew up in and move the family to low-income Las Pulgas, literally The Fleas. Carlie is unwilling to fit in with the kids at her new high school, embarrassed to let her old friends see her new reduced circumstances, and unable to hold a real conversation with her mom or her brother. Even her cat runs away leaving Carlie completely alone. The only thing she has left are the memories of her father's advice in her head.

Review:
Poor Carlie. After watching her father slowly die of cancer, a move across town might seem trivial; upsetting, but trivial. Fights with her mom, not getting asked out, rude neighbors, or a "pushy" English teacher (in the Tina Fey Mean Girls way) might also seem trivial. But all together? Carlie is helplessly watching her life fall apart around her.

Carlie's main problem with her new life in Las Pulgas is all the "poor people," as she sees them. Almost everything she dislikes about the people around her can be attributed to, in Carlie's mind, the fact that they are poor, or at least more poor and classless than the people she new in Channing. Even though Carlie and her family are in Las Pulgas because of financial problems, she doesn't see anything that she could have in common with her new neighbors and classmates. She puts on a tough front, but it's pretty obvious (to everyone) that she's just scared. McKenzie portrayed this beautifully. Even though we see the whole thing from Carlie's point of view, we can see (though Carlie cannot) that the people she interacts with in Las Pulgas can see that she's just trying to make it through without ever trying to fit in. She holds herself apart both because she feels she's better than those around her and also because the kids at her high school terrify her, something they pick up on all too easily. Eventually she makes a couple friends, but there is no Big Lesson about class consciousness. ::sigh of relief::

And through all of this growing and learning on Carlie's part, there are play rehearsals. The junior class is putting on Othello, and Carlie has been cast, against her will, as Desdemona. Opposite smokin' hot Juan. And Juan, very sweetly, refuses to take Carlie's crap. He calls her out on her assumptions about her classmates and about him. He drives her nuts (in good and bad ways), but he also protects her from some of her other, scarier, problems at Las Pulgas High.

For a while, this pile-up of problems distracts Carlie from the pain of losing her father. It's not as though she forgets about him or even stops being sad. She's just dealing with all of this other things first. But her father's advice keeps sounding in her head telling her to be strong, something she doesn't know if she can do anymore. When she finally faces her feelings about her father (with the help the scene in which Desdemona must say goodbye to her father), it is so real. Spoiler: And I love that she is mad at him for dying at the same time that she feels guilty for wanting him to die in order to end his pain. Anger towards a deceased love one, simply because they're gone, is something that is not shown all that often, though it is somewhat normal. Carlie doesn't rage against God, she rages against her father in the course of her grief.

The Princess of Las Pulgas is an honest look at how Carlie deals with huge upheavals in her life, both a huge change of lifestyle and the death of her father. It still manages to be a suspenseful, romantic, and uplifting read.



The Princess of Las Pulgas is available for purchase now!


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher.

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