Down to the Bone

Down to the Bone

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3.77 of 5 stars 3.77  ·  rating details  ·  736 ratings  ·  98 reviews
When Shai receives text messages from her girlfriend Marlena and reads them during class, her mother finds out what her A-student daughter's been doing behind her back and throws her out of the house. Soon Shai becomes involved with an unusual group of friends in Cuban Miami. Can a discarded freethinker turn the corner into a world as tender, exciting, and painful as her f...more
Paperback, 2nd, 264 pages
Published July 10th 2012 by HarperTeen & Bella Books (first published July 10th 2008)
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Nancy
Feb 09, 2013 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Nancy by: Mayra Dole
Laura is a junior in a Catholic high school looking forward to summer and to celebrating her two-year anniversary with her girlfriend, Marlena. Instead, she is humiliated when her teacher reads a love letter from Marlena out loud in front of all her friends, resulting in her expulsion from school and in the loss of her friends. Her mother has thrown Laura out of the house, promising that she can return only when she reveals the name of her secret lover and changes her ways.

Laura moves in with he...more
Mickey7
Down to the Bone is an excellent book.....the life story of lesbians and guys...what they have to face in the real world....Once you start reading it you can't put the book down until you finish....I caught myself reading til 4AM in the morning having to get up at 6AM....IT IS A TRUE STORY THAT HAS EVERYTHING....HUMOR, SARCASIM, EXCITMENT, VERY FUNNY, LATIN FLAVOR....AND MOST OF ALL THE TRUTH. A must read.
Ariel
May 05, 2008 Ariel rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone
Recommended to Ariel by: a lesbian friend and a group of friends
Compelling! It'll captivate you and take you on an emotional ride from beginning to end. I couldn't put it down! It starts with a kiss, but unlike Snow White who’s kissed by a prince and brought back to life, Laura’s kiss by another girl turns her life upside down. The characters are all Latino. They leap off the pages and are by far the best I've ever read in a YA novel. This is is no fairy tale, yet the author, like a fairy godmother, skillfully adds magic ingredients that'll make you laugh yo...more
Liz Bradbury
Review by Liz Bradbury, Author of the lesbian mystery romance series - Maggie Gale Mysteries

Written for young adults, this facepaced novel about a 17-year-old Cuban - American “tortillera” (the Cuban slang word for dyke) who gets caught in her Catholic school reading a love letter from her girlfriend, grips you from the first page and doesn't let you go. The main character Laura, is not only thrown out of school but tossed out of the house by her mother, who says she can't love Laura unless she...more
Lauren
There were plenty of sympathetic characters in Dole's YA debut, but odd choices in story-crafting made this a slower read than I would have liked. Main character Laura's attempts to balance her acceptance of her sexuality with her need to feel loved by her family fuel the novel, and there were a lot of situations and issues here that I hadn't seen explored in other GLBT YA novels, such as Laura's having been in a long-term lesbian relationship before starting to explore the gay community, and he...more
Tashia
Nov 19, 2010 Tashia added it
This book was about a girl,Laura, that was just starting to figure out who she really was. She lost alot of friends over this but they obviously weren't true friends if they didn't hang around, her mother after finding out her daughters true self disowned her too. Her mom thought she was a disgrace to her family and to everybody else. After getting kick out of her house she moved in with her bestfriend and her bestfriends mom. Laura, then got a job working with her ex's uncle doing landscaping...more
LaKiera Bailey
Down to the bone is a book about a girl named Laura, who is in a relationship with a girl. She was truely in love,then the girl moved and married a man. Also Laura's crazy mother finds out that she is a tortillera (cuban slang for disgusting dyke) and kicks her out the house. Then she refuses to love her again until she becomes straight. Laura then has to move with her best friend Soli and Soli's mom. They show her real love and change her in ways they don't even know. She no longer feels sad w...more
Wdebo5487
*Copied directly from my review on my blog (sorry, I'm busy :P)

This book was interesting (to put it simply). There was a certain awkwardness to it, but it was still good. The writing was good and the narrator, Laura, was raw and talks from her heart, which is good, none of that mysterious feeling crap that is in some books. Which I hate because you have no idea what the character is thinking, and they are suppose to be the MAIN CHARCTER and yet you have no idea what they're like.

Pro: It was uniq...more
Sally
The last of the four books I got at Hares and Hyenas. I'd seen it mentioned on a gay book blog but none of the libraries here had it, so imagine my surprise and delight when I saw it on the shelf, just waiting for me to buy it! :D

A good story with good characters, but oh wow SO much prejudice and unfairness that I wanted to cry. Laura's mother especially, what a horror!

Loved the glossary at the back, because so many foreign words were used. I think I picked up a few phrases. :D
Carla Lee
I can't stop rereading this book. I love Laura, the main character who is Cuban and a teenager and a lesbian, and her outlook on life and the way she describes the world around her. She's sharp and witty and funny, and at the same time her story is sweet and sad. The diversity of the characters is fantastic, and they're all very well developed. It's a wonderful, colorful book that is hilarious and heartbreaking and infuriating in turn and always delightful.
Erin
though it pains me to say it, there are so many things wrong with this book. it pains me because 1) i was totally excited to read this because of the reviews- both slj and booklist gave it great reviews, booklist even starred it, and 2) i hate to criticize any gay teen lit, esp. new stuff and lesbian stuff, because i am just so happy that people are writing it, it's getting published, and it's in my library. but i actually had to get out a notepad to write down all of the things that were buggin...more
Thomas
Jan 15, 2010 Thomas rated it 3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Thomas by: Nancy
Shelves: glbt
Laura attends a Catholic high school and is almost done with her junior year; like most teenagers, she is looking forward to her summer break - where she has her family and a nice job awaiting her. Not only that, but it's almost her two year anniversary with her girlfriend, Marlena. Unfortunately, Laura is caught reading a love note from Marlena during class. Not only does her teacher confiscate it, but she also reads it aloud to her entire class. Even though Laura is mortified and almost pees h...more
Rosie
Dec 27, 2009 Rosie rated it 4 of 5 stars
Shelves: 2009
Love Love Love this book!
Liz Rettig
I just finished reading Down to the Bone and I loved it. I thought it was a poignant, moving story about love, friendship and family interlaced with humour. Some wonderfully expressive writing too. Great dialogue.

Gay or straight, Down to the Bone is about what we all want and need – to be loved unconditionally for who we really are
Nancy
Mar 20, 2008 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Nanci Milone Hill, Christine Jenkins
Cuban-American teen Laura gets thrown out of school and home all on the same day, when her relationship with another girl is discovered. She and Marlena are forcibly separated, and Laura must decide whether going straight, if she can pull it off, is worth it, in order to be allowed home. Interesting issues of class and culture come up.
Lydia
This is a powerful book about a teen lesbian coming to terms with her sexual orientation and identity within the heavily religious (Catholic) Cuban culture in Miami. The opening takes your breath away as you experience the ultimate humiliation, sitting in your uniform, as the nun reads your love letter from your lesbian partner of two years. From there, you know it is not going to get better any times soon.

Despite the painful opening and the wrenching middle, the ending of this book yells joy. I...more
Teresa Rodriguez
Aug 27, 2008 Teresa Rodriguez rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: All
This book will strike a chord with anyone who is or has been a teen. Mayra Dole has woven a moving and funny story with lively and unique Miami characters. It encompasses some essential elements: love, rejection, humor, and determination. I enjoyed it immensely!
Jd
The characters in the paperback/kindle 2012 edition (black cover with two girls about to kiss of which I hear is very different from original book) are like Miami landscapes : they can be loose, colorful, manicured, chaotic, gorgeous, ugly or WILD. I enjoyed Mayra Lazara Dole’s writing style and the way she kept Shai humble, funny and introspective from beginning to end. Unlike most Latina's in literature, Shai is a fun, highly intelligent, artistic thinking person. She and her unusual friends m...more
Kelly
Jul 31, 2010 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: glbtq, ya
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Kelly
Tortillera/lesbian Laura gets kicked out of her mother's house for being "abnormal" and an embarassment to her family. It's an honest portrayal of queer life in Cuban-influenced Florida.
Catherine
I debated about the 4th star, but decided it was because I had just finished Torn. Down to the Bone is a story about a Cuban-American teenage girl living in Miami in the process of coming out. The story is told over a year, so you get a feel for her process and also get to know other teenage girls in her queer community (femme, butch, genderqueer, and boi), as well as supportive straight friends. Laura struggles with her love for her mother and brother and trying to figure out her sexual orienta...more
Jennifer W
An OK story. Cuban-American Laura has been in a relationship with Marlena for two years when a nun at her Catholic school finds a love letter and she gets kicked out of school and home. Marlena then is sent to Puerto Rico to marry a guy. Laura spends the rest of the novel trying to figure out her sexuality and discovering the teen gay scene in Miami. The writing around her confusion and hurt is realistic enough, but the interactions with her friends was sometimes corny. I probably would have giv...more
Melody
I'm deeply conflicted about this book. While I loved the exuberance and sheer playfulness of the writing, it wasn't particularly tight writing- there was much meandering and several odd dangling plot elements. There is a lot going on in this book, some of which rings achingly, miserably true. The friendship between the main characters is lovely. It must be insanely hard to grow up gay and Cuban-American, and I think this book is a very welcome addition to the small body of literature for teens l...more
Frances
Ugh, hard to get into. Laury's relationship with her girlfriend is way over the top and there's no history for it, so it just seems sappy and kind of gross. I didn't buy into the characters or the dialogue despite trying to keep an open mind. After all, what do I know about the Cuban gay scene in Miami?. Too much seemed like it was thrown in for shock value. Possibly the thing that bothered me most was that the adults were so one-dimensional. Some of the secondary characters, like Tazer, were dr...more
Angela
By trying to fill the void where lesbian characters of color should be in YA lit, Doyle seems to have tried to cover every possible problem one could face as a lesbian teen of color, creating a book that is certainly filled to overflowing with colorful characters, but becomes a bit of a mess along the way. Here the whole plot focuses on being gay, rather than a gay character leading the story.

Additionally, way too often the writing was weak and sloppy, telling us about the characters way more of...more
faelinwolf
Know what I really liked about this book? It talked about transgender issues without making it seem totally weird and freaky. There was even a prominent character who was transgendered.

I didn't like the tone about bisexuals as much, but that could have been the reflection of the culture's feelings on bisexuals as well, which is cool. And hey, at least they talked about bisexuals and there were bisexual characters!

Very sweet book about one young woman's coming out process and the cultural issues...more
Michael Sedano
Full review here: http://labloga.blogspot.com/2012/11/r...


Down to the Bone is not a morality tale--though readers will find that. Dole's crafted a cautionary coming of age story that says a person is entitled to whatever happiness she can create. It says we live in parallel worlds, the gay world, the haters world, the world of the rest of us. Some of us pass back and forth into those worlds while others shut themselves and others out. All own the consequences of their acts.
Melissa
While I think the plot could have formed an excellent book, I was very disappointed in Dole's writing style. I felt like she was pushing way too hard to make Shai into a hip, relatable teen. Shai constantly uses slang phrases and awkward metaphors that don't fit a teenager's lifestyle, and she and her friends are involved in a whirlwind of activities that most teens never dream of doing. The whole book was a colorful whirlwind of action and drama, but it lacked the underlying introspection that...more
Kelsey
Age: High School

A great contribution to the GLBTQ literary genre in YA for it's unique subject matter, including Laura being in a long-term lesbian relationship without familiarity --and sometimes rejection--of the queer scene and her lesbian identity. Furthermore, the character is Cuban-American and the complexity of coming out as a Catholic. However, the superfluous writing style went beyond stylistic flavor and into downright boring. While I cared about the characters enough to want to know t...more
J.M.
At 17, Laura Amores is a Cuban teenager in Miami who attends a Catholic high school. But when she is caught reading a letter from a friend and not paying attention to the class, the nun reads the letter aloud. Turns out, the missive is from Laura's girlfriend, and details an intimate relationship Laura has kept hidden from everyone.

Suddenly friends Laura has known her whole life turn on her. Her own mother is mortified at her immoral behavior and throws her out of the house, refusing to speak to...more
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Book Review 1 10 Mar 17, 2009 02:18pm  
Down to the Bone (Kindle Edition)
Down to the Bone (Hardcover)
Down to the Bone (ebook)
600494
Born: Havana
Reared: Miami
Summers: New York & NJ
Moved to: Boston
Returned to: Miami

Published by:

Harper Collins
Scholastic
Running Press
Children's Book Press
Lee and Low
Bella Books


More about Mayra Lazara Dole...
Birthday in the Barrio/Cumpleanos en el barrio Drum, Chavi, Drum!/Toca, Chavi, toca! The Letter Q: Queer Writers' Notes to their Younger Selves Cornered: 14 Stories of Bullying and Defiance

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