Finding Miracles by Julia Alvarez
In the novel Finding Miracles by Julia Alvarez, Millie Kaufman, an ordinary American teenage girl living in Vermont. Millie is generally pretty shy but keeps one secret she won't tell anyone: She's adopted.
Millie chooses to ignore this aspect in her life so that she can have fun being a normal teenager, but a new student, Pablo Bolivar, shows up in her class. It turns out, Pablo and his family are refugees from her home country in South America.
Millie tries to avoid him in order to keep that part of her life from catching up with her but without being able to help it, Pablo and Millie become great friends. As their relationship grows, Millie gets more and more curious about her birth parents and her past, so when Pablo and his family go back to their country after the liberation party had won the election against the dictatorship, Millie is invited to come. While there, with the help of Pablo who, as the story goes, becomes more than a friend to her, Millie uncovers some knowledge about her birth parents, though never finding their whereabouts or true identities. Towards the end of the book, Millie decides to take back her birth name that was pinned to her as a baby found at the doorstep of the orphanage; Milagros meaning Miracles.
In this wonderful novel, Julia Alvarez weaves together different cultures and a heart-warming journey of a young girl finding who she is and finding Milagros. The book teaches that people come to families in different ways and a family is a family, even if not always by blood.
I highly recommend this book to anyone (though it may be more girly for some). On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the worst, 10 being the best) I would give it about a 7.5. I enjoyed it and if you read into it, I'm sure you will too.
Millie chooses to ignore this aspect in her life so that she can have fun being a normal teenager, but a new student, Pablo Bolivar, shows up in her class. It turns out, Pablo and his family are refugees from her home country in South America.
Millie tries to avoid him in order to keep that part of her life from catching up with her but without being able to help it, Pablo and Millie become great friends. As their relationship grows, Millie gets more and more curious about her birth parents and her past, so when Pablo and his family go back to their country after the liberation party had won the election against the dictatorship, Millie is invited to come. While there, with the help of Pablo who, as the story goes, becomes more than a friend to her, Millie uncovers some knowledge about her birth parents, though never finding their whereabouts or true identities. Towards the end of the book, Millie decides to take back her birth name that was pinned to her as a baby found at the doorstep of the orphanage; Milagros meaning Miracles.
In this wonderful novel, Julia Alvarez weaves together different cultures and a heart-warming journey of a young girl finding who she is and finding Milagros. The book teaches that people come to families in different ways and a family is a family, even if not always by blood.
I highly recommend this book to anyone (though it may be more girly for some). On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the worst, 10 being the best) I would give it about a 7.5. I enjoyed it and if you read into it, I'm sure you will too.