Customer Reviews

Mexican High: A Novel

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If ever there were a book with cinematic potential, this is it. MH is a fantastic ride from beginning to end, but I have to add that Monroy's pacing is so perfect and her images, so sharp, that I hope the talent scouts are poised to make an offer before the producers of "Gossip Girl" ante-up. In any event, this debut novel is as hip and fun, as it is painfully raw and real. Monroy is the real deal, and she's poised for a brilliant career.

"Mexican High" is a coming of age story with a lime chaser, plumbing not only the depths of teen angst, but so too more pertinent issues like class, race, culture, drugs, crime, corruption, and immigration. Set in the maze of Mexico City, Monroy's Milagro raises a pointed question: "How much of our crime is compounded by the laws we pass to prevent it?" Readers of smart literary fiction should not be deterred by the chick-lit cover...this thoughtful, articulate debut is anything but...it's right up there with Jhumpa Lahiri and other top multicultural writings.

The twist in this upscale coming-of-age novel, which features the expected quantities of pot, blow, awkward sex, and epiphanies about conformism, is that its narrator is an American at a Mexican school. The thinly-veiled setting is Mexico City's American School, as infested with cocaine and Prada as it's often reputed to be, and the experiences of the feisty Mila Márquez are somewhat modelled on Monroy's own. Events that flitter across Mila's radar - political assassinations, Zapatista rebellion, currency devaluation - place the timeframe in 1993-94, the same time a teenaged Monroy moved to the Mexican capital (and two years after I moved there myself).

As a Spanish-speaker, Mila is able to penetrate the rarefied stratum of the school's social elite, the "fresa" set, while retaining her Mexican-American suspicions of all they represent: conspicuous consumption, social elitism, and Mexico's abysmal racial divide. Here lies the novel's real value. Mila's awakening to injustice and the marginalization of the darker-skinned majority repeatedly rings true, as do her conflicted reactions to the rich. Mexican high society can indeed entice: so beautiful to look at, so stylishly dressed, such easy charm, such cosmopolitanism. The way Mila lets herself be sucked in by all that, despite her egalitarian instincts, is entirely credible. So is her gradual withdrawal from such company, which stops short of complete. Monroy is careful to shade her wealthiest characters: some are wholly irresponsible, others have at least a glimmer of moral awareness. There's plenty to disgust in Mexican High, but this is not a merciless satire of high-income idiocy à la Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One.

Mila's voice sounds too mature for a 16-year old, and her barely-tamed exuberance for narcotics may irk some readers. Monroy could have done more to flesh out the lives of the maids, gardeners and chauffeurs who hustle to make the cosy lives of the rich yet cosier. Mention of Mila taking the subway home at 3 a.m., when in fact it shuts at midnight, raises doubts over Monroy's familiarity with the lifestyles of the city's less well-off; so does a reference to a cab driver with a cell-phone (common now but never then). Otherwise, her eye for detail is impressive, and anyone who knew the metropolis in the 1990s will feel nostalgia for its popular haunts. Peppered with poignant moments of adolescent yearning and disappointment, this is a lively critique of a world rarely glimpsed in English-language writing.

As someone who travels to Mexico City often for my work, I wanted to read this, but after finishing I felt like I got to look through a window into a whole new exciting world. I saw Mexican High described as similar to Prep, but a U.S. boarding school can't hold a "vela" (candle) to ISM, the fictional International School of Mexico, where students are confronted with political assassinations, every kind of drug imaginable, "lunch" parties (called "comidas") thrown by the school student council where there is tequila, rum, vodka, etc but no food. These teenagers may live at home, but they have drivers, maids, and bodyguards more present than parents.

Mexican High is an ambitious true-to-life portrayal of what it feels like to be the child of a diplomat, never really knowing the concept of home or a homeland. It also captures a rich landscape of a true 21st-century megalopolis. The "fresas" -- children of Mexico's small ruling wealthy minority, a handful of powerful people who actually run the country -- are very much more than Mean Girls; they embody an entire social class and type. I especially loved learning about the kind of life high schoolers lead in Mexico City. Set in the early nineties when the peso devalued greatly, Mila and her friends can get away with anything by bribing the police. There is no acknowledged drinking age. There is danger and crime, and nothing, not even kidnappings or robberies, are what they seem. These are teens with the freedoms of adults, which makes for tension, drama, and climactic scenes that blew me away and left me rooting for Milagro -- or Mila, as she prefers to be called.

I wondered whether Mexican High was a memoir disguised as a novel. What IS certain: whether fact or fiction, this debut is a literary gem that appears to be cleverly disguised as a breezy summer book. No senores y senoras, it is not. As the cover humorously shows the reader, this is a novel with legs, and they will take it the extra mile.

Mexican High is almost too real, too painful, too poignant, that I couldn't believe Monroy is only in her twenties. I thought she was older, though in her jacket picture she looks about nineteen. I am curious what she will come up with next! From her life seems she already has a big supply of material. If this book does not become a run-away best-seller, it will be noticed for its accomplished writing and original story that takes the reader to an incredible, exotic setting with characters that will stick in your memory.

If someone can identify with this book, it is definitely me. I moved from the U.S. to Mazatlan, Mexico in the early 90s during my junior year in high school. Even though we did not move to Mexico City and did not do the extraordinary things Mila does in this story, I can tell you the class distinctions, mexican excesses, political issues, insecure environment, and colorful details in this story are certainly to the point and very real. Monroy manages to bring us the young adult culture that still exists today. I really like the way she sort of gave a soundtrack to the book by mentioning songs and bands from the time like Nirvana, Radiohead, blind melon and others. She made me remember my journey and struggle in my late mexican high school years all the way through my college years.

I have to admit that I mainly bought this book because I actually went to the high school in Mexico City which Monroy attended, and on which the book's fictional high school is "loosely based." Still, I was pleasantly surprised to find a book that portrays beautifully the real Mexico City, not just the Mexico City that tourists "fall in love" with and then write about superficially. Monroy captures the addictive quality of Mexico city, while also telling an engaging story full of multidimensional characters. I bought it on the day it came out and could not put it down until I finished it that very night. Highly recommend it to anyone.

As a non-drug user and one who has spent little time in Mexico, I was not sure how I would like this book. As other reviewers have pointed out, there are lots of drugs featured, and yes, quite a bit of sex too. Yet, this coming of age novel also has a lot of heart, and a real story. The main character, in spite of her indulgences, is likable and very real. I could not put this down.

I'm taking as a given all the things other people have said about the amazing way Monroy brings Mexico City to life, and works the city into the narrative here as a character in and of itself. What they who have come before me have said? It is indeed true, all true. But I'm taking the soapbox now to give a shout out to Monroy for bringing a convincing, sympathetic teenage character to the page. Teens too often get the shaft in all forms of media, from teen magazines to legitimate literature, television, and film. Mila, on the other hand, is a real person, not one of those one-dimensional cliches that teens are so often portrayed as. She reminds us of how hard and confusing and seminal those years of our lives are. (Do you remember? 'Cause I sure as hell do.) Mila is like Angela Chase gone wild and let loose in high society Mexico. In other words: a teenager, lost like so many of them, but lost in a way that everyone who has ever been a teenager can relate to. She is convincing and human and sympathetic; she's the kind of character we need on every page we pick up to read.

Plus, the pop culture references sprinkled throughout the book are the perfect details to set the backdrop for a coming-of-age story in the early and mid-nineties. If this book gets made into a movie or a tv series or a mini series or a teen soap or whatever (as I agree with a bunch of others reviewers that it should be), the soundtrack will be totally rock and roll, baby! Tomorrow is the first day of my new mission in life: to bring flannel back into vogue as a wardrobe staple.

A brilliant Bildungsroman from a writer whose eye for story, detail, and pathos explores the very heart of relationships,and subsequently how these relationships tend to be the tent poles of ourselves. From the filial to the amorous, Monroy investigates every level of what it means to be in contact with people and the world. Monroy's debut novel knows no counterpart.

Monroy takes us on the fascinating journey of an American high school senior thrown into a world of Mexican elite students, U.S. Embassy life and multi-layered social stratas of Mexico. With sharp, graphic descriptions, thoughful observations and colorful narration, the diary-like novel follows protagonist Mila's experiences as she confronts - and joins - in the excesses of life at a MEXICAN HIGH. An eye-opener and sizzling summer read!