A review by lauracooleyjohnson
Have You Seen Luis Velez? by Catherine Ryan Hyde

2.0

I regret that I can only give this 2 stars. It started out as a 5: a heartwarming kid who helps others, including rescuing kittens and blind old ladies? I mean, c’mon, how precious, right? But as the book continued, the genuine-ness of the characters wore thinner and thinner. The dialogue so contrived, and the situations so artificial that it no longer read like a novel, but rather devolved into a self-help book. The author uses a do-gooder teen as an allegory to make the point. It almost felt like I was back in business school reading “The Goal,” where the Boy Scout hikers are used as a proxy to explain supply chain efficiency. Here, the points around the importance of belonging (race and sexuality), helping others (community and kindness), not judging books by their covers (prejudice) were pounded into the reader with a heavy blunt object. Less preaching, more authenticity, please!