 
 
From the publisher:
Some people ARE illegal.
Lobizonas do NOT exist.
Both of these statements are false.
Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who’s on the run from her father’s Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida.
Until Manu’s protective bubble is shattered.
Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past–a mysterious “Z” emblem—which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.
As Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it’s not just her U.S. residency that’s illegal. . . .it’s her entire existence.
Review:
Lobizona is a richly layered narrative that is at once a mythological retelling, a coming of age story and social commentary. It’s interesting that the opening scene in the novel shows an ICE raid, the thing that Manu’s family and community fear the most. Manu and her family have well-practiced strategies for hiding from the government authorities bent on hunting down undocumented people and apprehending them for forced repatriation. The fear for ICE is on par with the danger represented by the supernatural elements Manu encounters throughout the novel and that, in itself, was a powerful statement about the fear too many in this country are forced to confront.
Manu is a wonderful, rich representation of the gifts that immigrants carry with them, gifts that make them so indispensable to the new countries they call home. She is bilingual, reads voraciously, and dreams of one day working for NASA as an astronaut. Originally brought to the US by her mother from Argentina, Manu has never met her father and this theme of identity occupies the first part of the novel, together with the harsh realities and fears of living as a undocumented person.
Lobizona is very successful at conveying the immigrant experience and all its terrors and triumphs. There is relentless hope even as Manu’s family fears discovery, and they rely on their dream that somehow, things will work out for them, the way it has worked out for so many others.
But Lobizona is also a young adult fantasy novel – and it is true to its genre. It relies heavily on Argentinian folklore which, after the millionth retelling of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, is a refreshing change of pace. The magical realism spliced with portal fantasy, the world-building and the use of Argentinian Spanish did my multi-culti heart so much good. I want more books featuring other Latin-American cultures and in this, the book delivers.
Manu is unique, as we discover. She blacks-out for three days during her monthly cycle, during which she occupies a dream world. She is the seventh daughter, so she should be a witch, but instead she is a Lobizona or a female werewolf, in possession of powers usually reserved for the seventh son. She has silver, star-shaped eyes she must cover with sunglasses because they are so odd. She comes into possession of super hero – like powers like supernatural strength, speed and overdeveloped senses.
Without spoiling the remaining plot points, there is a forbidden love, a very cool friend group, and excellent queer representation. This story grapples with the big issues: the ethics of assigning legal status to humans for any reason, immigration, and the fascist nature of ICE. It also confronts issues of misogyny, the flaws of a binary gendered system, and the way privilege is awarded and the harm it brings to everyone, whether that privilege is in the world we live in or the world where magical beings vie for meaning and power.
I look forward to reading the next installment of this series.
ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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