The Smell of Old Lady Perfume - Hardcover

Martinez, Claudia Guadalupe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1933693185 ISBN 13: 9781933693187

Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press, 2008

Synopsis

Claudia Guadalupe Martinez’s debut novel for young adults is a bittersweet story about death, family, and the resilient emotional strength of the human heart. Chela Gonzalez, the book’s narrator, is a nerd and a soccer player who can barely contain her excitement about starting the sixth grade. But nothing is as she imagined—her best friend turns on her to join the popular girls and they all act like Chela doesn’t exist. She buries herself in schoolwork and in the warm comfort of her family. To Chela, her family is like a solar system, with her father the sun and her mother, brothers, and sister like planets rotating all around him. It’s a small world, but it’s the only one she fits in.

But that universe is threatened when her strong father has a stroke. Chela’s grandmother moves in to help the family. The smell of her old lady perfume invades the house. That smell is worse than Sundays. Sundays were sad, but they went just as sure as they came. Death was a whole other thing, and Chela doesn’t understand that’s what everyone is waiting for. In her grief and worry, Chela begins to discover herself and find her own strength.

Claudia Guadalupe Martinez was born in El Paso, Texas. She learned that letters form words from reading the subtitles of old Westerns for her father. She went on to graduate from college and moved to Chicago to become one of the city’s youngest nonprofit executives.

About this title

About the Author

Claudia Guadalupe Martinez was born in El Paso, Texas. She learned that letters form words from reading the subtitles of old westerns for her father. He encouraged her to write a book. He died when Claudia was eleven. She went on to graduate from college and moved to Chicago to become one of the city's youngest non-profit executives.

Reviews

Grade 4–6—Chela Gonzalez and her friend Nora are looking forward to sixth grade in their El Paso school. They have finally been placed in the A-class, the "smart class," which is for students who only speak English. Then Chela's father has a stroke on the first day of school, her grandmother comes to help out, and "the air became thick with the smell of old lady perfume, of dying flowers and alcohol…. It was the smell of bad things." Nora becomes a member of the popular group of girls who've decided to make her an outcast. Chela is asked to enroll in the Gifted and Talented group that meets after school, which helps to ease her loneliness. Her father suffers another stroke, fatal this time, and again the smell of old-lady perfume fills the little house. The book ends with the family trying to regroup after their loss. Chela is rewarded with the highest honor at the school's end-of-year awards ceremony—the All School Girl award. Through her pride, her sadness is also evident since her father was the one who always pushed her to do her best. This is a sweet coming-of-age story, telling of the cruelties of children toward one another and dealing with the loss of a parent. The story should appeal to readers dealing with their own tween years.—Diana Pierce, Leander High School, TX
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

As she starts sixth grade, 11-year-old Chela is straddling two borders, the figurative one between childhood and adolescence and the real one that divides Ciudad Juarez from El Paso. Chela is devastated when her new classmates in Texas laugh at her accented English and jeeringly call her a Juaranota. Then her best friend, Nora, abandons her to join a clique of popular girls. These problems pale, however, after her beloved father suffers a stroke and can no longer work. Her grandmother comes to help (it is her perfume that pervades the household), but fear and worry surround the family. Martinez’s highly episodic first novel is a quiet story that is, perhaps, a bit too predictable, filled with such coming-of-age staples as mean girls, popularity contests, first romances, sibling rivalries, and more. However, readers will also find the book’s loving portrayal of Chela’s family, its nicely realized setting, and its artful exploration of the problems of assimilation, to be both engaging and heartfelt. —Michael Cart Grades 4-6. --Michael Cart

Edition details

• Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1933693185
• ISBN 13: 9781933693187
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256