I enjoyed this young adult story about Cammi, the daughter of a Telenovela actress. Her mother's fame causes problems for Cammi in developing real friendships. When they move to the United States Cammi sees this as her chance to be someone different and not live in the shadow of her mother's fame. Cammi makes some mistakes and doesn't correct some wrong assumptions about her. Will this ruin her new friendships? This book covers themes of racism and class. I think it's well done and appropriate for grades 8 and up,

I tried reading this book but sadly I didn't make it very far while reading this book. I think that the different point of views made it a bit difficult to understand . I usually love this author's books and I hoped that this one would work out for me.

Based on the chilly reception The Go-Between is receiving, this may be one of those instances where the audiobook makes all the difference. Souza’s narration is delightful and engaging, and I enjoyed the heck out of listening to this book.


The biggest issue here is the premise of The Go-Between, which is both problematic and unconcinving. Camilla del Valle’s mom is a telenovela star, and their family is incredibly wealthy and famous. When Cammi’s mom gets a role in Hollywood, the family decamps to Beverly Hills. At her new school, Cammi ends up pretending to be a poor scholarship student after her friends assume that must be the case because she’s Mexican. On the one hand, it’s not that convincing because Cammi doesn’t do a great job pretending, and it’s also just an absurd thing to do, though Chambers does establish why Cammi wants to be “normal.” Cammi does get called out on the problematic nature of what she’s done, and it’s sort of the whole point, but yeah it is problematic.

The novel shines most in Cammi’s relationships with her family members, which are very sweet. I loved how thoughtful The Go-Between is about telenovelas and Bollywood films, capturing their essence without judgment and appreciating the ways in which the over-the-top storytelling really works. Cammi’s famous parents are truly involved in her life, and the family is very loving, which is rare to see when the characters are famous.

The LA school, Polestar Academy, is like a caricature of a hippy dippy LA school. There’s a class that’s run like a Native American tribal council with a “talking stick” and choruses of “A-ho.” I mean, maybe this happens in LA, but :/. The book’s primarily about racism, primarily through microaggressions and stereotypes, so there’s a lot of that going on in here. I think the book makes it’s point, but it’s not particularly subtle and would have worked better with better characterization for the secondary characters.

There’s a lot that I liked about this book, but I definitely get why it’s getting a poor reception. I’m aware of the flaws, but the audiobook was great.

Light and fun-hearted read about the more opulent lifestyles of the Mexican elite. I appreciated that this book tackled stereotypes with wit and candor. Great summer read.

This was a pretty intriguing premise but ultimately a DNF for me due to the fact that the characters were so cliche and the writing just didn't really do anything at all for me. A few of my colleagues came away from reading The Go-Between with the same impression. Purchased for the collection but definitely not something I'll reach for when recommending titles.

This was an entertaining if slight YA book about a teen girl in Mexico whose mother is a famous telenovela star who moves the family to LA for work, where the girl begins attending an elite high school. And then her classmates assume she is there on scholarship, and she just . . . goes with it. And of course lying about your entire life is complicated! There is also an underbaked plot that could have been great about the girl getting into cooking and befriending the school's fancy chef, as well as an underbaked romantic plot. Still, I needed something frothy as a palate cleanser and this did the trick. B/B+.

Sweet, frustrating at times and ultimately with heart, this book seeks to defy everything from stereotypes about Mexican immigrants, defy what it can mean to be racist and defy what it means to be a teen novel. Reading Cami's story is a breath of fresh air for a genre overcrowded with privilege and whiteness,.

Cammi’s mom is a telenovela star in Mexico City who takes a job in LA playing an on-screen maid in a TV show, thus uprooting their family and making Cammi is a privileged immigrant. When Cammi starts at her fancy new school she knowingly plays into the racial stereotypes (namely, that she's a scholarship kid) that her classmates project on her. I just don't think we need a book with this narrative--I wish Cammi had immediately stood up to her friends rather than pretending to be their stereotype. It's disrespectful of people who are economically and socially disadvantaged. I also did not like the usage of a Native American spirit stick or the "woke" Kevin character. I'm worried that readers who don't finish the book (especially because it's not super plot driven) will only experience the all the problematic elements without resolution.

The Go-Between is an entertaining story about a girl pretending to be someone she's not. Camilla is the daughter of a famous Mexican telenovela actress - her mom is the beloved star of Mundos sin Fronteras. So she hangs with the #RKOMC (Rich Kids of Mexico City), though she doesn't really feel like she fits in. When her mom gets hired to shoot a pilot in Los Angeles, Camilla's plunked down into a completely new environment, a private school where everyone assumes she's a scholarship kid, the daughter of a domestic worker. When her secret is finally exposed, she's hoping to have taught her new friends something about making assumptions. Instead, they're all mad at her - her rich friends feel manipulated, and an East LA student Camilla has been trying to befriend is furious that Camilla has been playing at being poor.

What I liked: I was interested to read a YA contemporary about a character of color who is upper class and a story that explores the intersections of ethnicity and social class. Watching Camilla navigate her new environment was interesting - she's knows she's privileged, but she's never seen herself as a person of color before. She's fascinated at the way people make stereotypical assumptions about her. The writing was lively and the book included a lot of interesting information about Mexico City and Mexican history, architecture, and food.

However, there was something about the writing style that was distancing. YA writing is usually not like that - in fact, I'd argue that YA writing is all about creating a tight bond between narrator and reader. From the author's bio, I can see that her prior writing was mostly memoirs, which made a lot of sense to me. This book did read a bit like a memoir. I'm not one of those people who thinks "telling" in a story is always a writerly crime, but this story did feel very told and not shown. The plot felt a little like a sitcom - a kind of comic problem is set up and then very quickly and easily resolved.

Definitely check out The Go-Between- It's an entertaining read that isn't the typical YA contemporary.

A YA read that touches upon microaggressions and racism/prejudice while somehow also being light hearted and funny. Camilla's mom is an uber-famous Mexican telenovela star. When the paparazzi spotlight gets too heavy, she decides to take that crossover acting job in the States. Even though she is going to be playing a maid, the opportunity to get her own American series. Camilla now has to adjust to life in Beverly Hills, at her fancy new prep school, where the first friends she makes assume that she is on scholarship because she is Mexican. Fascinated by the way her new "friends" act, Camilla decides to keep the "poor girl" act up, but when she befriends a real scholarship student and East-LA native, Camilla realizes she needs to own up to who she really is. It's not perfect, but it is a fun read that manages to make serious issues relatable.

Again another book I was surprised by other reviews. I think I enjoyed this book so much because of all the things going on in our country right now, it was neat to read a book about another culture and race than my own. I enjoyed this boo so much I will be rereading it.

This is a coming-of-age story about a rich teenager, Cammi, in Mexico - she is the daughter of a famous telenovela actress - who moves to LA with her family. At her new school, she is stunned by the stereotypes about Mexicans with which she is confronted, and decides to “reinvent” herself by playing along with them. Her motives are mixed: for one thing, she always felt stifled by the restrictions and expectations that being the daughter of a famous wealthy mother imposed on her life and how they affected her friendships. Second, she wanted to find out just how racist her new friends could be. She also liked being someone new and different; it was like starring in her own telenovela. And as time went on and she no longer wanted to lie, it had gone on for too long; she didn’t know how to climb out of the hole she had dug for herself without making everyone hate her for the deception.

A Latina at the school, Milly, knew who Cammi really was because she read the Spanish edition of People Magazine. She was furious at Cammi for living this lie that she felt did not help the dangerous situation of immigrants in the U.S. She told her: “You’re an educated Mexican who came here with buckets of cash. You could change the minds of kids at this school who think we’re all one stereotype after another. Maybe those same kids would go home and talk to their parents. The parents at this school have influence. They get it done. But instead of being a force for good, you’re fake slumming it and perpetuating stereotypes.”

Milly challenged her to tell her friends, but Cammi was basically chicken, so one day Milly just “outed” her.

Her new friends were justifiably hurt and angry, and Cammi didn’t know if or how she could ever make it right again.

Discussion: There is much to like about this book. As the author stated in the forward, she wanted to shed light on “…the struggle for a sense of self and place for Latinas in this country . . . regardless of your class.” She did a good job making that point.

I appreciated the insertion of so many Spanish phrases, followed by their translations. I also loved Cammi’s father, who taught her that their elite status was “a fabrication of a culture that makes the little people you see on your TV screens into BFDs….”

Lastly, I liked that the author brought up the idea of the social construction of race, although she didn’t go too deeply into the concept.

On the negative side, the two romances involving Cammi and her brother made “InstaLove” look like slow motion. NanosecondLove would be more like it.

Evaluation: I think young adults will enjoy this book. Although the ending was probably a bit too much “and everything worked out great” that might have been an ironic wink at the telenovela genre.

While I found this book entertaining, I don't think Camilla's is a story that needs to be told at this point in time. I think that the students from my school who have faced hardhships crossing the border, or who were trafficked here, would find the protagonist shallow and petty. I will not be posting a review online because I only post postive reviews.

I think my main problem with this novel was that it wasn't a story - it was a long essay. The book is written in the perspective of Camilla, a Mexican girl who has recently immigrated to the US, and the storytelling style, while in the first person, is frequently in the past tense, and goes off into tangents. It felt more devoted to dumping as much information on Mexican culture in one novel as possible, rather than a story about a girl who needed to check her privilege.

Camilla lies about her parents in an effort to see how racist her classmates can be, because she was surprised to find that it is so. Which makes me question how she could have been surprised when she herself says that she watches a lot of American media. I could tell you how racist people I assume are in the US towards Indians just by the portrayal of Indian-American characters! Ignoring the fact that she doesn't even try to correct them and let racist stereotypes be perpetrated, most of this goes unchallenged by her own brother, who is more concerned with her lying than the fact that she is doing the former. In fact, with the exception of Milly, no one else tries to correct her on that front, and her racist so-called friends had only been so because they wanted to have a 'diverse' friend in their group.

I am so out of eyerolls at this moment, because the book before this had put me in a bad mood. The book, while trying to be culturally inclusive, is wrapped in the bland package of 'trying too hard' and mediocre descriptive writing. My only consolation over it all was that it was only a blessed 200 pages; I couldn't have been happier to see the last chapter - well, until I realized it was a preachy thank-you speech of sorts. While the cultural diversity in the book comes through, there was one point in the book when Camilla joked that she was possibly schizophrenic; excuse me, being a liar who leads a double life doesn't make you schizophrenic and it is insensitive to paint a mental illness in such a manner. Camilla's mother's anxiety was mostly abandoned after that plot point was made, and it served mostly as a plot initiator than a plot arc.

Overall, the book is blandly written and boring, and even the lush details on Mexican culture can't make up for that fact.

The premise of this book was interesting: Camilla del Valle is the daughter of a telenovela star. Living the high life as one of the rich kids of Mexico City, she struggles with determining who is her real friend, and who just wants access to her famous mother. When the family moves to Los Angeles so her mother can begin a career in American television, Camilla thinks this will be her chance to fly under the radar. But when her new classmates at a fancy private school assume that the new Mexican girl must be a scholarship student, she goes along with it, telling them her mother is a maid and her father is a gardener (well, her mother is <i>playing</i> a maid, and her father is does like spending time with his orchids in their greenhouse).

The first half of the novel, which takes place in Mexico City, is nothing new - rich kids dealing with rich kid problems. The second half, in LA, showed more promise, but suffered due to the lackluster writing. This really felt more middle grade than YA, and could seriously use another editing pass. Time passes in odd ways - a boy flirts with Cammi at a club and the next day she gets in a fight with her best friend because the friend is jealous. Context makes it sound like it's the next day, but apparently she's now been dating the boy for months? She repeats phrases multiple times in the same paragraph - things like that.

The Go-Between not only tackles racism but it also reflects the life of an immigrant not only in the USA but in any part of the world. How one is being stereotyped just because of one’s race. This is one in which I can relate. How people assume of the life you lead just because you are part of a particular race.

The Go-Between is a take on a life of an immigrant, but in this case, it was told in the perspective of a rich teenager who has no idea what it’s like for the working class people on how they deal with their everyday lives in a foreign country. And while the main character can be offending at times, in the end, I can say that it did manage to get its point across the readers. It is hard to feel sympathy towards Cammi since she keeps on lying and lying about her life. Sure, I can understand why she’s wary in choosing her friends and wanting to be accepted by people for just being herself and not of her rich status and famous parents. But to pretend that she’s poor, I think it is too much. People feels sorry for her, giving her money, clothes, food and even a “job” to help her financially and though she feels guilty about it, she still keeps at it. Her new friends are a little racist yet they deny it. But it occurred to me that it frequently happen to some people.

And her friends to keep assuming about her life as a Mexican is quite infuriating sometimes too. Aside from being poor, they assumed her mother is a maid, her father is a gardener and maybe a drug dealer boyfriend. What’s worst is insinuating that it is because of them (or their parent’s money) why Cammi is in America. Another thing I don’t get is how is Cammi be dating a med school student. Isn’t he a little too old for a 16-year old girl?

Towards the end though, it is nice to see how Cammi’s character grows and develop as she learned some lessons like “you don’t have to be poor to keep it real”. She has come to accept what she really is and how she can do a lot of great things because of what she have. Like helping other people, for example.

So regardless of the few things I don’t agree with, I still quite enjoyed it especially the last few pages. It is a quick-paced, fun and a solid read overall.

Since this is being compared to Jane the Virgin, if I was on the cast I'd be ashamed of the comparison.

My daughters descend from a culture of Half Irish (me) and Half Mexican (their father) so when I came across this book I was hoping it’d be something I could add to our home library. I’m always on the lookout for novels that feature DECENT characters that represent either culture.

I had a real problem with this one though and don’t feel comfortable having this in my house because I wouldn’t want my daughters thinking I condone how half their gene pool is being portrayed.

On a positive side, it was nice to see a main character who wasn’t being labeled as a housekeeper, gardener, illegal stealing work from Americans, etc. Instead you’re getting to experience a story from the eyes of someone who is part of the upper class in Mexico and how that differs from being in America where you’re often measured not by your bank account but by your skin color. Another positive was a central theme of accepting who you are and embracing that regardless of the opinions of others.

The negatives, for me, outweighed those few positives. I felt that the Mexican culture was turned into stereotypes to the point of borderline racism when the main character decided to ‘act’ the part of a poor Mexican immigrant so that people don’t find out the truth of her background.

By the end I felt like I had betrayed my daughters by spending any time reading this particularly in light of what is occurring in America towards the Mexican community.

Meh. Kinda interesting, at least briefly, for its portrayal of telenovela culture, but not a strong book in any way that I could see. And since I wouldn't expect to find many young American readers who are hot for telenovelas, I fear the interest in this title will be limited.

An interesting and different look at a Mexican descent, one who is not the stereotypical poor, lower-class girl. I like I'm just not sure that the execution of the story worked for me.