Haters

Haters is the first young adult book by Alisa Valdes Rodriguez, but anyone who reads it, can't put it down! In this novel, the readers are introduced to 16-year old Paski (Pasquala Rumalda Quintana de Archuleta). She is from New Mexico, but then later moves to Orange County, California. Paski misses her old home of Taos, being able to mountain bike all of the time, her friends, even her psychic grandmother( whose talents she has inherited), but maybe the O.C. isn't all just so bad. After all there's outrageously hot Chris Cabrera there. It's not like Paski doesn't make friends. She makes friends with a girl named Tina who has a weird obsession with anthropology. Things are much different for Paski at her new school, Aliso Niguel High. Certain things are very important there, such as money and looks. The beautiful and rich( and quite evil), Jessica Nguyen has both. She and her friends called the Haters are a little threatened by Paski, who is just as pretty as they are. First they pick on her and call her the apartment girl, but then they later find out that her dad is going to be really well paid for the movie that he is animating. Paski has what it takes to get to the top with all of the Haters, but is that where she wants to be? Haters was a very humorous and entertaining book that I just couldn't set down! I'm sure there are a million other books about rich, popular teenagers, but I'm sure that this is the best one. Alisa Valdes Rodriguez tells this story in a young and fresh voice that will have you wanting more. I do hope that Alisa Valdes Rodriguez has more interesting ideas like this one in that brilliant brain of hers.

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's HATERS receives New York stage actress Flora Diaz's excellent, dramatic style as it tells of a high school girl who finds her classmates in her new Southern California school cruel - especially the wicked and beautiful Jessica.

I bought this book and fell in love with the message so much that I passed it on to a friend's teenaged daughter. She doesn't speak any Spanish at all, but came back to me completely blown away by the book. We sat, discussed the book, the situations the characters got into, some of the cultural themes, and she thanked me so many times for giving it to her to read. I am going to get this for my 15 year old niece too!

This book was well-done. I couldn't put it down. Each chapter leaves you guessing and you just HAVE to continue to the next. Fantastic read. I would recommend it for ages 13 and up, however, due to some sexually suggestive dialogue/situations. Other than that, amazing.

Latina or Chica Lit is the new big thing nowadays, with lots of titles coming into the market. Haters by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, gives a nod to the Latina aspect, but the ethnicity of Paski (the main character) is secondary to the rest of the story. In fact, there's a lot going on in this book that you wouldn't normally expect to see in Chica-Lit or Chick-Lit. Paski, short for Pasquala Rumalda Quintana de Archuleta (hehe, you can see why she goes by a shortened version), feels like the "normal" person in her family. Her dad is a semi-famous cartoonist and her grandmother makes a living as a psychic. She, on the other hand, is a popular kid at school and enjoys mountain biking and being editor of the school newspaper. Then her dad drops a bombshell on her - his Squeegee Man comic book character has been optioned for a movie and he's moving them to Los Angeles, far away from Taos, New Mexico. Not only that, but he's gone LA on her (as if he wasn't kooky enough already), with laser-whitened teeth and a strange new wardrobe. He's also enrolled her at Aliso Niguel High, a school full of haves and very few have-nots. Her new neighbors in her apartment building warn her to watch out for the Haters - popular, spoiled rich kids who have no problem with making the lives of other kids miserable. Before school even starts, Paski meets Chris Cabrera, the very sexy It guy in school, who happens to be dating the It girl - Jessica Nguyen. Chris shows an immediate interest in our plucky Paski, which immediately puts her on the hit list with Jessica. Okay, so, so far that sounds like a pretty straightforward storyline you might find in any number of books (new girl catches eye of hot guy on campus, popular girl(s) have it in for her). But there are a number of things in Haters that are different... For one thing, Paski has visions. She shares her grandmother's talent as a seer, even though she doesn't want to. She's soon got a major conflict when she has visions of Jessica involved in a serious accident. Can she stop it before it happens? Does she want to, when Jessica so obviously has it in for her? Then there's Paski's love of mountain biking and Jessica's skill as a motocross rider (both figure prominently in the plot). It isn't too often you see girls in books taking on such challenging sports - and excelling at them. Actually, I think you could safely say "kicking butt" at them. And Paski herself is quite a conflicted character with a lot of internal turmoil. Sometimes she sounds like she wants to buy into the money-is-everything culture and then other times she doesn't. Sometimes she curses her gift and connection with otherworldly things, other times she cherishes it. And then there's Jessica. Wow. This girl must have taken lessons on how to build an evil empire from Dr. Evil or Lex Luthor. She runs her friendships like a CEO and it's hard to say when she's worse - when she's against Paski, or for her. She is seriously bad. There are a n