School Library Journal Starred Review (Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Gr 9 Up— Ogle's free verse memoir is a series of vignettes, chronologically capturing the soft and dark moments of his childhood through post-college as the shared memories with his maternal grandmother (abuela) dim because of her dementia. Ogle's readers will recognize events from his earlier works Free Lunch and Punching Bag , but this is a solid standalone reflecting on parental abuse, poverty, bullying, bigotry, coming out, trauma, and the vital impact one person can have on a life. Ogle's use of repetition, symbolism, and extended metaphor cuts sharply. The book is broken into seven sections; in the sections "To And From" and "There And Back Again," a young and then post-college Ogle reaches out to his abuela with collect calls. As a child, it's to let her know where his mom has moved them, always living with others and in poverty. When he's older, it's after living on the streets and contemplating suicide. His father kicks him out because he's gay, and he doesn't know if even his abuela will be okay with him. She accepts the calls without question, though, and "collects" him each time with unconditional love. Even if readers don't see the extended metaphors—for instance, they won't know what a collect call is—there is raw honesty in this work that is compelling. The magnitude of intergenerational relationships, deep connections, and acceptance shine in Ogle's foreword and poems, which are clearly love letters to his abuela, captured like fireflies in a jar. VERDICT A must-purchase for all YA nonfiction collections, Ogle's work speaks directly to what so many young people experience and offers them hope.— Rachel Zuffa

ALA Booklist (Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

This emotive memoir in verse serves as a companion to Ogle's award-winning Free Lunch (2019), in which his abuela, despite being a minor character, provided major compassion, love, and encouragement to him during his most trying times. These poignant and powerful poems, dedicated to her, conjure up both nostalgia and melancholy. As Ogle's abuela's memories are affected by her dementia, this collection serves as a way to document and preserve the gratitude and affection the author has for a parental figure who meant so much to him. Through recollections of the smells of her kitchen and the safe haven of her home and vignettes that bring up specific moments from childhood or adolescence, Ogle paints a picture of what it was like to live, learn, and grow with his beloved grandmother, reminding readers that memories will always be kept alive in our hearts. The humor, reflection, and heart present in these pages remind readers to cherish their bonds with their loved ones and that small moments can last a lifetime.

Kirkus Reviews

As palliative for his beloved Abuela's worsening dementia, memoirist Ogle offers her a book of childhood recollections.Cast in episodic rushes of free verse and paralleling events chronicled in Free Lunch (2019) and Punching Bag (2021), the poems take the author from age 4 until college in a mix of love notes to his devoted, hardworking, Mexican grandmother; gnawing memories of fights and racial and homophobic taunts at school as he gradually becomes aware of his sexuality; and bitter clashes with both his mother, described as a harsh, self-centered deadbeat with seemingly not one ounce of love to give or any other redeeming feature, and the distant White father who threw him out the instant he came out. Though overall the poems are less about the author's grandmother than about his own angst and issues (with searing blasts of enmity reserved for his birthparents), a picture of a loving intergenerational relationship emerges, offering moments of shared times and supportive exchanges amid the raw tallies of beat downs at home, sudden moves to escape creditors, and screaming quarrels. "My memories of a wonderful woman are written in words and verses and fragments in this book," he writes in a foreword, "unable to be unwritten. And if it is forgotten, it can always be read again."A visceral window into a survivor's childhood and a testament to the enduring influence of unconditional love. (Verse memoir. 13-18)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Ogle pays clear-eyed tribute to his maternal abuela while covering heavy topics such as child abuse, financial precarity, and racism in this searing verse memoir, a standalone companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag. Chronological vignettes depict Ogle’s evolution from joyful toddlerhood (“My giggles cannot be stopped,/ they rush out like ants from a kicked mound”) to tumultuous adolescence (“junior year names/ Beaner./ Faggot”), astutely describing desperate hunger, whiplash from constantly