High school senior Emi­ly Gold­berg has a per­fect sum­mer planned, the high­light of which is a cross-coun­try road trip with her two best friends before they head off to sep­a­rate col­leges. But her plans are dras­ti­cal­ly altered when her mater­nal grand­moth­er dies sud­den­ly and Emily’s fam­i­ly must fly to Puer­to Rico to attend the funer­al. Emi­ly expe­ri­ences cul­ture shock when she finds her­self in a crowd­ed Catholic church with hun­dreds of rel­a­tives she didn’t even know she had, includ­ing a cousin her own age named Lucy. When Emily’s moth­er decides to remain in Puer­to Rico for the rest of the sum­mer to cope with her grief, Emi­ly can’t refuse her father’s request that she stay with her. Feel­ing like an out­sider (and the Jew from New York whom cousin Lucy refers to as ​“the nuy­or­i­can,”), Emi­ly intends to qui­et­ly suf­fer through two months in a world so dif­fer­ent from her own. But when Emily’s moth­er final­ly opens up about her long unspo­ken past, Emi­ly begins to reach out to her new rel­a­tives, and dis­cov­ers the impor­tance of con­nect­ing to both sides of her her­itage. Emily’s voice is authen­tic and wit­ty, and her thoughts and obser­va­tions will ring true with teens. Span­ish words and phras­es pep­per the dia­logue through­out this engag­ing nov­el. Ages 12 – 16.