A review by erine
Cuba in My Pocket by Adrianna Cuevas

5.0

This takes a minute to get going, spending a fair amount of time establishing what Cumba's life in Cuba looks like before moving on. Cumba has a stable and loving family and mischievous friends, although the shadows of revolution haunt everyone in his community. Once Castro takes over the government, Cumba's father becomes targeted as a former supporter of Batista, and Cumba himself will be forced to join the local Youth group, where they indoctrinate and propagandize the kids.

So his parents organize a way out of Cuba.

There are some parts that don't make sense to me:

Spoiler

one is the soldier, Ignacio, who demands that Cumba report for youth duty, but then there are no repercussions for the family until several months after Cumba leaves. The other part that left me confused was the rest of Cumba's family gets out of Cuba. Organizing Cumba's departure was complicated, I just don't get how the rest of the family waltzes out of the country.

I wish those bits had been addressed either in the story or in the author's note.

But overall, I appreciated the story arc: from home in Cuba to adrift and alone in Florida, Cumba's story tells of a political refugee who flees for greater opportunity and safety only to find a different host of challenges.