Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 CST 2021)

A young Cuban couple finds love while surviving desperate times of lack and longing.It's the summer of 1991, and people are experiencing hunger and malnutrition in Cuba. Fourteen-year-old Liana and 15-year-old Amado live in a town well away from the bustle of Havana, where the Pan American Games are taking place, and away from observation by foreign visitors. When the story opens, neither knows of the other despite enduring the same risky fate of opting out of the supposedly voluntary (although opting out brings consequences) teen farm labor program. Instead, they are roaming the streets searching for any form of sustenance to make up for insufficient government rations. Liana happens upon a stray dog and takes him home. Her canine companion eventually becomes a matchmaker, connecting the young couple. Their relationship feeds their drive to survive and gives them reason to dream of different, better days. Engle uses free verse poignantly to express the devastation of constant hunger and the ever present fear of punishment while trying to survive life under a harsh regime. The theme of hunger is central to this story-literal hunger due to starvation as well as hunger for connection and hope. Engle's words masterfully convey an evergreen human truth: that, in the end, we want to be able to live and love to our hearts' content.A deeply touching read that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page. (author's note) (Verse novel. 12-18)

ALA Booklist (Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 CST 2021)

"Can love be enough in a time of hunger?" This is the tension Engle explores in her most recent novel in verse. Euphemistically called the Special Period in Time of Peace by the Castro administration, the 1990s were a time of extreme poverty and hunger caused by the abandonment of the fallen Soviet power, along with the U.S. trade embargo. A pair of teens, Liana and Amado, are drawn together by a stray dog they name Paz, who plays Cupid in their bleak, hunger-stricken lives. The poems alternate between the perspectives of these three characters, providing readers with an intimate view of the desperation people suffered at that time. Just as hunger preoccupies the mind of a starving person, it makes its presence known on every page. Liana and Amado fall in love, but even youthful passion is tempered by the fear of starvation. Readers will be motivated to do their own research about the Special Period, the balseros, and the innovative agricultural and artistic developments that came about because of and despite governmental restrictions.

Horn Book (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Engle (Enchanted Air, rev. 7/15; Soaring Earth, rev. 3/19) once again revisits her Cuban heritage and demonstrates an abiding appreciation of nature in this historical verse novel set during the "Periodo especial," the euphemistically named "special period in times of peace." In 1991, Cuba is hosting the Pan American Games and putting on a prosperous face for the rest of the world, but the Cuban people are starving, due to U.S. trade embargoes and the abrupt halt in aid and food imports from Communist allies after the Soviet Union's collapse. Two teenagers who have resisted joining the "voluntary" summer labor programs are brought together by a scruffy stray dog as they scavenge for seaweed, shorebird eggs, and any fruit, fish, or fowl they can find, hunt, or steal to ease their relentless hunger. At its heart, this is a tender love story, lyrically presented in alternating poetic voices (including broader observations in third-person poems from the dog's perspective), but it is also a coming-of-age narrative for the impressionable protagonists, exploring duty to country and family, the consequences of living with hunger and fear, and the costs of individual freedom and ambition. A deeply felt and engrossing look at a time when the grandparents lived "on a menu of memories" while the new generation survived "on nothing / but wishes." Luann Toth

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

A young Cuban couple finds love while surviving desperate times of lack and longing.It's the summer of 1991, and people are experiencing hunger and malnutrition in Cuba. Fourteen-year-old Liana and 15-year-old Amado live in a town well away from the bustle of Havana, where the Pan American Games are taking place, and away from observation by foreign visitors. When the story opens, neither knows of the other despite enduring the same risky fate of opting out of the supposedly voluntary (although opting out brings consequences) teen farm labor program. Instead, they are roaming the streets searching for any form of sustenance to make up for insufficient government rations. Liana happens upon a stray dog and takes him home. Her canine companion eventually becomes a matchmaker, connecting the young couple. Their relationship feeds their drive to survive and gives them reason to dream of different, better days. Engle uses free verse poignantly to express the devastation of constant hunger and the ever present fear of punishment while trying to survive life under a harsh regime. The theme of hunger is central to this story-literal hunger due to starvation as well as hunger for connection and hope. Engle's words masterfully convey an evergreen human truth: that, in the end, we want to be able to live and love to our hearts' content.A deeply touching read that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page. (author's note) (Verse novel. 12-18)