We Were Here

There's a certain charm in stick with something challenging until the end. Sure it's easy to give up if things seem like they aren't going well, but greatness comes from finishing what you started. We took that message to heart as we attacked Matt de la Pena's We Were Here. At first we thought the book was a joke. Written in a supposed dialect, the book features a main character, Miguel, who says stuff like, "yo," and "a grip," instead of, "hello," and "a lot. We struggled. Man did we struggle. We struggled a grip, dog. But we kept with it, and for this, we feel no regret. Here's what we found.

Miguel is a young man who has been sent to a group home for an unknown crime. He doesn't fit in there and spends most of his time reading. After some time passes, Mong, a possibly insane boy in the group home, decides to break out. Miguel, Mong and a third boy, Rondell, escape from the group home into California. The rest of the book focus around how Miguel survives, and what he learns while on the lam.

As we said, we were unsure. Surely no one really says things like, "'sup, dawg?" anymore, right? But the more we read, the more we realized that this book had actual merit. While the conversations may be enigmatic, the book's heart is clear. Miguel learns what it means to be a "bad kid", and what his own character is truly like. This book is a good read for someone with a few hours and a "street slang-to-English" dictionary.