Lobizona (Wolves of No World #1) by Romina Garber
- Publisher: Wednesday Books, 2020
- Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
- Format: eARC
- Page Count: 400 pages
- My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)
Manuela Azul has special eyes. Eyes that her mother made her hide behind sunglasses. Raised in Miami to a single Argentine mother, Manu dreamed of the day when she would be a U.S. citizen and the end of her almost 17 years of hiding. But when her “grandmother” was injured and mother taken away by ICE, Manu was left to fend for herself for the first time in her life. A life she understood almost nothing about.
On the surface, Lobizona is a fantasy novel about undocumented immigrants, but in truth, it is so, so much more than that. This book belongs to all immigrants, biracial people, feminists, queers, and every fighter who believes in equality. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything where all these identities blend so well into a single story. Garber certainly did that, and it blew me away.
Sometimes reality strays so far from what’s rational that we can only explain it through fantasy.
I expected this book to be good, but I didn’t anticipate it to be absolutely breathtaking. Manu, Saysa (I love Saysa), Tiago, Cata, and all their friends are extremely loveable characters with their own beliefs, ideologies, as well as flaws and insecurities. They are a force of change as they join each other to fight for equality. To fight for liberation from their cages.
“[W]hy settle for being a son of the system, when you can mother a movement?”
Saysa
Lobizona is one of the best novels on people who were supposed to belong but deemed otherwise by law. It is a book on being utterly undocumented, on feminism, on queer rights, on equality, and on fighting back. It is a revolution under the guise of fantasy, rooted in love and stretching into every injustice. Very well-written and well-thought-out, Lobizona is undoubtedly a YA no one should miss out on. [13 Apr 2020]
I received an e-ARC from Wednesday Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
