I would’ve preferred more closure at the end of the book (like what happens to her brother and cousin), but I still very much appreciated this book about a young girl and her family who flee to Miami, Florida to escape Fidel Castro’s hold on Cuba. This book shows what it was like for her living in a new country and going to a new school not knowing or understanding English, and what it was like for her family leaving loved ones behind and being exiles.

This book is set during 1967 and 1968. The US had made negotiations with Cuba to get people out, resulting in the Freedom Flights that happened twice a day from December 1965 to April 1973. Nowadays, immigration laws are stricter and people fleeing Cuba (as well as Haiti) by boat are not allowed to enter the US.