Water in May is about fifteen year old, Dominican Mari Pujols and her pregnancy. Her baby is diagnosed with HLHS (a defect where the left side of the heart is not developed) and the story touches on the hardships that she and her baby have to face during and after her pregnancy.
This book was heart-wrenching and touching. I loved the relationship between Mari and her friends. I also admire her Abuela and Bertie because they both changed for Angelo and they wanted the best for Mari. The book also touched on important topics such as the hardships of pregnancy, especially teen pregnancy (even though it was planned); and, it proves that age does not matter when it comes to parenting.
Despite all this, I had many problems with the book. The main character, Mari was extremely critical/racist and immature. She always had something negative to say about a person, especially about their cultural background or ethnicity. She didn’t say she had a crush on Dr. Love, but it was evident through her actions and feelings. I felt weird reading about that because he is a married man (even though he is young), older than Mari; not to mention, he also became a father around the same time Angelo was born. She was very possessive of Dr. Love and she didn’t trust any of the female doctors, which was frustrating because Dr. Love was also busy and all of the doctors are trying to help Angelo best as they can.
I hated the way she treated Bertie. He made some bad decisions, but he did change; he didn’t want Mari and Baby Angelo to suffer. She never gave him a chance to be there for her and Angelo; she always got angry at him and yelled at him without listening to his side of the story. In addition, she made it seem like it was Bertie’s fault that Baby Angelo had developed heart problems.
Overall, the writing was choppy and hard to read. I wasn’t sure if it was the author’s intention to use broken English – to show Mari’s background – or if that was just her style.
Spoiler Alert 