It would be an understatement to say that her dad’s abrupt departure from the family has disrupted Belén’s life. Ever since he abandoned Belén, her older sister Ava and their mom in their East Oakland neighborhood, Ava has seemed distant and dismissive, and their mom is hardly ever home. Even Belén’s former refuge, books and reading, hasn’t come through for her. Now, in the midst of senior year of high school, she’s on the verge of flunking out. To make things even more complicated, Belén’s brilliant, ambitious best friend, Leti, is pregnant, and Leti’s lifelong dream of attending UC Berkeley hangs in the balance, especially when Leti’s racist parents learn her boyfriend is Black. Belén wants to be a good friend to Leti, but how can she, when she’s barely holding herself together?
In one short year, Belén’s life has become almost completely unrecognizable. Unfortunately, her relatives all claim that one thing is entirely too recognizable: Belén’s resemblance to her father, a high school dropout. Is she fated not only to look like him but also to repeat his various failings? Are she and Leti doomed to retrace old ways of thinking and being, or can they outline new and different paths for themselves?
Debut novelist Carolina Ixta lives and works in Oakland, and her knowledge of and affection for the city is apparent on every page of Shut Up, This Is Serious. Ixta doesn’t shy away from representing the city’s complexities—its vast socioeconomic inequalities, its legacy of racial tensions, its rich but complicated Mexican American community—in clear-eyed detail conveyed through Belén’s intimate first-person narration. While the setting is so vivid that Oakland itself almost becomes a character, Belén’s story still manages to take center stage. Many of her struggles—to find self-acceptance and confidence; to shed harmful relationships and seek out healthy ones; to accept help from supportive adults; to imagine a better future for herself, her family and her friends—will resonate with a wide swath of readers, who will be captivated by Belén and Leti’s efforts to thrive.
