“Who invented love, anyway?” Elio Solis wonders as he starts to see ultraviolet colors whenever his classmate, Camelia, is around. Eighth grade has been full of changes, both inside, where his emotions run wild, and outside, where it seems like all his guy friends talk about is girls. “The hormones were poppin’ / I mean, everyone was down bad!”
The adults in his life are giving Elio mixed messages about how to be a man: His dad tells him that the Solis way is to be macho and “suck it up,” while his mom is trying to teach him feminist values. Then betrayal strikes, and suddenly the only color Elio can see is red.
Award-winning author Aida Salazar’s previous middle grade novel-in-verse about puberty, The Moon Within, featured a Latina girl. In a letter to the reader, Salazar reveals that Ultraviolet came about because her tween son and his friend asked her to write a similar story that reflected their experiences with “puberty, first crushes, gender and rites of passages” as cisgender Latino boys. And she delivers.
Salazar’s verse is captivating, with the imagery of the text heightening when Elio’s emotions rise. Maintaining a conversational tone sprinkled with mentions of farts and boogers to entertain, she also loads in similes like “A collision of feelings / blisters me / like molten lava” to illustrate the dual nature of being an awkward but thoughtful young person. Goofy pop-culture references, such as a video game called “Mindcrack” (referencing Minecraft), and an alpha male-type social media influencer who is never named, are easily recognizable.
Commenting on topics that range from patriarchy to colonialism, the internet to peer pressure, and first loves to heartbreaks, Salazar delivers a fully intersectional look at what it means to try to embody masculinity without toxicity. She filled a gap she saw in middle grade literature, and countless readers will see themselves in the pages, regardless of race or gender, but especially Latino boys.
