Book Review

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood by Bejamin Alire Saenz, published by Cinco Puntos Press

Reviewed by Mike Shea

August 2004

Buy it at BookPeople

UT­El Paso professor BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ's author bio dubs him a fronterizo, "a person of the border," and his sweetly gritty novel SAMMY AND JULIANA IN HOLLYWOOD (Cinco Puntos Press) is indeed a loving tribute to Chicano culture in the Mexican-American borderlands. Sixteen-year-old Sammy Santos lacks street savvy but wields enough brainpower to earn his place in the pecking order of Hollywood, a rough-and-tumble barrio outside Las Cruces, New Mexico. Against a sixties time-warp tableau, Sammy loves and loses the soulful Juliana while he and his pals act out as bored kids are wont to do—smoking, drinking, and test-driving their brand-new hormones. Sammy and Juliana is the kind of grit lit teens love, a young-adult novel that might give the genre a good name.

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