Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico Book

"Do you guys have Internet?"..."How about TiVo?"..."You do get American TV?" The house was dark. Wait a minute -- do they even have electricity?

Even though Sofi Mendoza was born in Mexico, she's spent most of her life in California -- the closest she gets to a south-of-the-border experience is eating at Taco Bell. But when Sofi and her friends sneak off for a weekend in Tijuana, she gets in real trouble. To Sofi's shock, the border patrol says that her green card is counterfeit. Until her parents can sort out the paperwork and legal issues, Sofi is stuck in Mexico.

In the meantime, Sofi's parents arrange for her to stay with long-lost relatives in rural Baja. It's bad enough that Sofi has to miss senior prom and even graduation, but her aunt, uncle, and cousins live on a ranch with no indoor plumbing! As the weeks pass, though, she finds herself adapting to her surroundings. Sofi starts helping out on the ranch, getting along with her bratty cousins, and she even meets a guy with more potential than anyone from school. Through the unexpected crash course in her heritage, Sofi comes to appreciate that she has a home on both sides of the border.

KLIATT

To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, May 2007: Sofi Mendoza is the typical suburban high school student. She talks to friends on the computer and complains that her parents are too strict. She is planning on going to UCLA after high school graduation and has a crush on Nick Hoffman, the blue-eyed, blond captain of the high school wrestling team. When her friends plan a Memorial Day weekend in Tijuana, Mexico, she plans on telling a lie to her parents in order to join them and Nick for some private parties and sandy beaches. Sofi is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, but she doesn't speak Spanish and she doesn't have the correct paperwork that would allow her to come back across the border. At the end of the weekend, she is unable to return home and must stay with relatives she has never met while her parents sort out the difficulties with her documents. She moves in with her Aunt Luisa and her family in a tiny house very different from the suburban home in which she had grown up. She develops a relationship with her cousin Yesenia, who helps her to find a footing in a strange culture. Andres, a hotel employee her American friends had mistreated, turns out to be a more trustworthy love interest than Nick could ever have been. Finally, her family is able to get Sofi the documentation she needs to return home. Loosely based on a real incident, the novel highlights the difficulty that such border children have. Neither Mexican nor American, Sofi must come to terms with who she really is and what she has to offer in both cultures. Reviewer: Janis Flint-Ferguson