“Ruth and Luisa live very different lives within the dusty desert town of Phoenix. Ruth is the only child of a political official. She spends her days stuffed into scratchy dresses and smiling prettily in the ballrooms of the Hotel Adams. Luisa is a young housekeeper. She looks at the Persian rug and thinks, I also know what it feels like to be walked over, barely noticed, and covered in other people's dirt. The girls stumble into a partnership when they overhear a plan to set fire to the hotel, a political hot spot for the growing western town. As they race to figure out who is behind the plot--and how to stop them--they must not only overcome what other people expect from them but what they've grown to expect from themselves.”
Series: Part of the “American Stories for Gutsy Girls” series, but does not seem connected to another other book.
Spiritual Content- Ruth thinks that the only place she gets to go beside the hotel is to church and has no enthusiasm to walk there on a day that is not a Sunday; Ruth comments that she is praying when trying to avoid telling her governess something (which was a lie), but realizes that prayer “isn’t a bad idea at all” with how she is feeling lately; Mentions of church & church going; A few mentions of praying; A mention of God resting someone’s soul; A mention of the Catholic Church;
*Note: Religious phrases like “saints preserve us”, “Heavens if I know”, and “for heaven’s sake” are all said once or twice; Each chapter starts with an illustration of a phoenix; Luisa often gets “corazonada” (Spanish for hunches or premonitions) with feeling that something going to happen (described as a “prickly feeling at the back of her neck, the tug in her gut, the sensation that something is just not right”) and Ruth also has hunches about something not being right; Later, Luisa calls these hunches as “gut instincts—or heart instincts”; Ruth feels like there is an “air of sanctity” when her father has time for her; Someone comments on everyone’s fates being “up to the bigwigs”; A couple mentions of luck & being lucky; A mention of a story about someone going mad from the ghosts at a haunted hotel.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘blimey’, a ‘doggone it’, a ‘drat’, a ‘good grief’, two ‘golly’s, and five ‘blasted’s; A secret code includes the word “right aSS rain” (misspelled on purpose); Eye rolling; Eavesdropping (and feeling some guilt over it); Harsh words are said between the girls (mainly about one’s parents and implying suspicion on one); A fire, smoke, pain, an injury, & blood/bleeding (border-line barely-above-not-detailed // semi-detailed); Ruth grieves her mother and not knowing her (she passed when Ruth was little); Luisa steals the hotel’s ledger to find out an answer about the mystery by tricking a hotel employee (not said that she returns it, but she does feel guilt over doing it); Ruth lies to her governess (about a handful of times; once calling it “thinking…creatively”) and sneaks out without her (twice); Later, Ruth goes to tell another falsehood, but tells the truth to her governess instead after her governess was honest with her; Luisa also sneaks out (which requires her to cross town by herself at night); Luisa wants to keep the mystery a secret from her mom as she knows she would disapprove of being involved in it; Many mentions of fires, possible fires and an arsonist, arson, destroyed buildings, & possible deaths/murder; Mentions of deaths & grief (including Ruth for her mother & a wife for her husband); Mentions of alcohol, drinking, drunks, a drunk driver that killed someone, & saloons/bars; Mentions of cigars, pipes, tobacco, & smoking; Mentions of eavesdropping; A few mentions of a (white male) writer hoping to write about “gunfights with Indians”, “savage Indian skirmishes”, and“deceitful Mexicans”; A few mentions of gossip & rumors; A couple mentions of lies & lying; A mention of the Civil War; A mention of gunfights with Indians; A mention of gambling;
*Note: The racial differences between Luisa and Ruth are highlighted often throughout the book (such as: Ruth thinking about “the rules of society are ugly, but they are firm…in nearly all matters, [Ruth] comes out on top [compared to a Mexican maid like Luisa]”; Luisa being unable to tell if the “powerful white men” are loud because they are angry or celebratory; Luisa wonders if people will listen to her about something important if a “white girl [like Ruth] is on her side”; Luisa tells Ruth about loving going to school even if it wasn’t as fancy as the school where the “Anglo children went” and pauses because she’s not sure if she should have said that out loud (Ruth doesn’t think Luisa says this to make her feel bad though she still feels guilt and thinks that perhaps they are “both powerless” but “it is clear that Luisa’s life has additional challenges due to her race and class”); *Spoilers, but mentions an “entitled request” from Ruth to Luisa* When not getting far in the mystery, Ruth tells Luisa that they need to get into the rooms of the suspects, which makes Luisa irritated at this “bold and entitled request” and says that it would be breaking the law, could get her arrested, and her mother in trouble as well; The girls apologize to each other later; Towards the end, Ruth realizes that her comment was unfair and it was a mistake to say it *End of Spoilers*; Luisa feels hopeless at the thought of her life being only ever working at the hotel); *Major Spoilers* Halfway through, Ruth is told by her governess that Ruth’s mother was Mexican and they grew up together (which is a complete shock to Ruth); The governess comments about some people from Mexico are “more fair-skinned than you’d expect. It’s…a complicated privilege, as I’m sure you’ll come to see, passing as white while hiding our heritage.”; Ruth’s governess tells her that “mixed marriage is…complicated” and her parents constantly faced judgement and danger & were concerned about people’s prejudices holding Ruth back, so her father concealed her Mexican heritage; Ruth’s father had dreams of taking her to Mexico one day once it’s safe “from outside invaders and political corruption”; At the end, Ruth is learning about her newfound culture from Luisa’s mother and her governess and while she feels envious at Luisa knowing all the connections to her heritage that she won’t have, Ruth also knows about the “privileges” her light skin and mixed heritage affords her; Ruth calls that “ugly and illogical and infuriating” but knows that passing as white “does present her with opportunities” even if she feels split into two (adding that it’s a “luxury to contemplate theses facets” instead of having to face “the harsh, hateful rules of society” that are dictated by skin color that Luisa and her mother face daily *End of Spoilers*; Other comments about race and property are said and mentioned (such as: Luisa noting her mother’s often grumbling about when the Arizona land was a part of Mexico; Luisa being “constantly mystified” by politicians who believe they rule the land and are “all-powerful” because of what they own; Luisa not thinking that Arizona becoming a state will affect her or other workers’ lives; Luisa noticing a group of “powerful white men” at a gathering; Luisa talking to a Native American man who works at the hotel about “painful things” like when “white settlers who moved onto his tribe’s farmland and never left”, the children of his village going to boarding schools “to learn the customs of white people” and forget their own, and how he doesn’t allow “the Anglos” at the hotel to call him by his true tribal name because others ignored his tribe’s name; An Irish immigrant busboy at the hotel grumbles about the visitors to the hotel barely registering workers like him as people and feeling degraded by them; Luisa notices the contrast between a picture of construction workers being a mix of Apache, Mexican, and immigrant men (later called “brownskinned workers”) as those are the people that “usually end up in those sorts of grueling jobs” around her area & a group of “white men in clean suits” near them; Ruth overhears a guest at the hotel talk about being in Arizona first (compared to newcomers) and thinks that it’s “quite another kind of attitude to pretend that they are the original residents” and feels uneasy at the disregard for “the Mexicans who had claim to this land seventy years ago and the Indians tribes who have lived here for hundreds of years more”; Luisa’s mother comments on the world not being fair to people like them; A Native American man warns Luisa that it’s dangerous to poke around “powerful people, white people”; The man also says that the (white) settlers do not care about or see people like him and Luisa (adding about unfair business loans that would make his people have to sell their land and will have to start over on new lands); At the end, a boy comments about it being a fine balance between being aware of injustice and wrongdoing, but also believing in the good in people); Ruth and Luisa comment about it being awfully hard to get people to listen to girls, that “no one pays any attention to girls”, and that they are told to be quiet; Luisa and Ruth talk about never having the chance for their voice to matter & that girls like them are “practically invisible”; Ruth’s father is often busy with his work so she feels like she’s just in the background in his life and tries not to let it bother her, but it does and she feels pressured to make good impressions on him (at the end, he tries to pay more attention to her); Ruth’s father comments on her becoming a “fine lady or a wife” and she holds back her opinion that she has no interest in becoming either of those and hates wasting her time on “girlish, meaningless frivolities”; Ruth says that others only want girls to learn about “pretty things” like paintings and pianos, but she likes “real things” (Luisa argues that pretty things can be real too; At the end, Ruth has realized that indulging in things that some people would think are “girlish” or “silly” doesn’t detract from the important things she wants to do); Luisa thinks about how women aren’t often left with many options unless “they’ve got a man to lead the household”, but it seems like to her that marriage has its “own array of challenges”; Luisa and Ruth dream of a world where the words of girls are taken seriously; Partially shared poems by Edgar Allen Poe & José Martí are shared; Mentions of the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz of Mexico; Mentions of the women suffrage, wanting the right to vote, having every right to be treated as equal to men, & group of suffragettes destroying buildings; Mentions of books, fictional characters, & authors (‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘The War of the Worlds’, ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’, ‘An Odyssey into the Exotic Unknown’, ‘Up from Slavery’, Sherlock Holmes, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Charlotte Brontë, H.G. Wells, Walton Orville, & Emily Dickinson); Mentions of doomsday prophecies about the end of the world; A few mentions of Ida Tarbell.
Sexual Content- A boy about the girls’ age acts smitten around Ruth (mentions of him looking starry-eyed and moony when seeing her, blushing when she speaks to him, & him looking swoony and attentive to every word she says); Luisa teases Ruth about the boy and him being “head over heels in love” with Ruth, but Ruth thinks that while they are too young for courting, she doesn’t mind his affections (first thinking that she hated the idea of being a “silly girl with a silly crush”, but now thinks she could be a girl with a crush in addition to being an aspiring journalist); Luisa’s mother makes sure that Luisa isn’t “holding a candle” for a waiter at the hotel as it isn’t appropriate and he is too old for her (concerned he is “laying on the charm” on her), but Luisa says it’s not like that and her mother is satisfied and warns her that while Luisa loves her romance stories, this isn’t one of them; A newly married couple show “pure displeasure” when talking to each other or sharing a kiss & the man snaps at her and leans in “menacingly” when she brings up her late husband; A few mentions of crushes.
-Luisa Bravo, age 12
-Ruth Fremont, around the same age
P.O.V. switches between them
Set in 1910
272 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
Older High School Teens-
My personal Rating-
While published by Thomas Nelson (a publisher that is known for being originally a Christian one), there was not any faith content in this book and reads more like a mainstream middle-grade book. Usually, I only review Christian books on BFCG, however with this one being published by Thomas Nelson, I decided to go ahead and review the first two books of the series on here. Based on research prior to reading this first book, I figured there wasn’t going to be faith elements in this story. Had I expected Christian content in this book, I would have been very disappointed. There could have been naturally added-in comments or discussions about God making us all different and unique with special talents—which I think could have lightened the heavier topics of races, racial divides, and discrimination. Because of the lack of faith content, I view this book more as a secular/middle-grade story and rated it similar to what I would have had I randomly picked it up at the library.
The cover can’t help but reminded me of Samantha and Josephina from the American Girl books with this story and main characters. Set prior to Arizona becoming a state, I found different elements of this book and mystery interesting. I was curious who the potential arsonist was and trying to find clues with Lucia and Ruth (even if the mystery did end in a lackluster kind of way). I can’t say I loved either of our main characters, though I appreciated the scene of them apologizing to each other in a sincere way after sharing hurtful words previously.
Due to not having an adult that has time to listen to their concerns, Lucia and Ruth investigate their mystery by themselves and no adult is involved—this includes Ruth lying to her governess and both girls sneaking out. There’s no said consequences for these actions, as a note for parents.
I do have mixed feelings on some of the…comments and reveals that were in this book. There was a bit of a political message added in—mostly about white people/men taking over the land that belong to others. While it’s definitely true that this was a hard and awkward time in Arizona’s history with the class and race differences—and I’m sure there were greedy and powerful men aiming for statehood for their own benefits—it did feel like most all of the white male characters had an agenda that only benefited them; plus that most immigrants shown were being mistreated or treated as less-than often by these white men. If this book was written and published many years ago, I don’t think I would have picked up on it as much as that was probably true to a degree for the time period, but in today’s political climate, it feels a little heavy-handed and intended to share a message. Perhaps I read too much into it, but it was noticeable to me and makes me hesitate to recommend it as every race has their “bad apples” so to speak and I don’t think it’s right to paint a group of people as being all the same way. Maybe these comments were meant innocently and intentionally for the time period, but in the current world, it feels a little off.
Overall, I found the historical time period interesting and did research after finishing this book, but I wish a few things had been a bit different—mainly the ending to the mystery as it felt like a very unsatisfying conclusion and how I struggled at times with keeping my attention on the book due to the third person, present tense writing style. My rating is based on these two elements, especially as I was disappointed about the ending to the mystery.
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
*I received this book for free from the Publisher (Tommy Nelson) for this honest review.
