We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh- 320 pages

Book Blurb:

For fourteen years, Letty Espinosa has worked three jobs around San Francisco to make ends meet while her mother raised her children—Alex, now fifteen, and Luna, six—in their tiny apartment on a forgotten spit of wetlands near the bay. But now Letty’s parents are returning to Mexico, and Letty must step up and become a mother for the first time in her life. Navigating this new terrain is challenging for Letty, especially as Luna desperately misses her grandparents and Alex, who is falling in love with a classmate, is unwilling to give his mother a chance. Letty comes up with a plan to help the family escape the dangerous neighborhood and heartbreaking injustice that have marked their lives, but one wrong move could jeopardize everything she’s worked for and her family’s fragile hopes for the future.

My Review: 4 stars

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We Never Asked For Wings was an ambitious follow up to Diffenbaugh’s successful debut: The Language Of Flowers. With Flowers being the success it was, it’s hard not to compare the two, but please don’t; they are completely different in subject, tone and voice. The only similarity was seeing Diffenbaugh’s fight for the underdogs whether in foster care, being poor, lacking education or judged by an address.

I enjoyed this story of watching Letty find her feet and get some grounding. Letty’s dependency on her parents and their reverse migration back to Mexico was an interesting twist. Additionally, the proof that migrating birds can lose their way often mirrors some of the plot lines in the story.

The reader will care about the cast of characters and especially the fifteen-year-old son Alex, as they both are finding themselves and then coming into themselves, in which their age is not a boundary.

Quotes I liked:

Migrating birds reorient themselves at sunset. The exact reason is unknown, but at twilight, just when the sun drops beyond the horizon line, birds flying in the wrong direction correct their paths all at once.”

-“I’m not breaking up with you, he thought. I’m saving you.”

-“The origin of our identity is love.”