Jacqueline Bravo can’t understand why she’s being called to the principal’s office and is shocked to learn her mother hasn’t paid her tuition at St. Bernadette High School in three months! Now Sister Mary Grace is threatening to kick her out and even recommends a vocational school until she gets married.
Finances have been tight ever since Jacqui’s father was killed in Vietnam. She is determined to win the alumni scholarship to UCLA, and there’s no way she will transfer to a public or vocational school in her senior year—never mind get married! But she doesn’t want her younger siblings to have to leave St. Patrick’s either; her sister is already hanging out with unsavory boys and Jacqui knows it would only get worse at the local school. So, she starts looking for a way to earn money and help make ends meet.
Without telling her mom, Jacqui gets a job at a local restaurant. She struggles to manage school and work, volunteering with an organization fighting to improve the barrio and new friendships, including with a boy she has had a crush on forever. When the police come to the restaurant looking for a former waitress who is now missing, Jacqui gets pulled into the mysterious goings-on. Why does the owner want her to cross the border into Mexico to buy supplies? Is what people say about drugs being sold there true? Introducing teens to the struggles of women and Mexican Americans for equal rights in the 1970s, this appealing novel deals with death and grief, relationships among family and friends and the importance of believing in your community—and yourself!
“Frazier highlights elements of California history that are often overlooked, portraying the strength of a community in giving its people a bridge to a better life. With its honest teenage voice and a gritty realism that evokes what life would have been like for a Mexican American teenager in the California of the 1970s, this novel stands out. An excellent example of historical fiction that teaches and also transports.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Readers will find themselves swept up into this compulsively readable and engaging story of a teenager struggling to make a better life for herself.”—Booklist (starred review)
“The plot and characters wind their way to an entirely engaging and satisfying climax.”—La Bloga
“Mona Alvarado Frazier clearly is hitting her stride as a writer and author of YA literature. A Bridge Home, her second novel, marks a high point in a promising future.”—La Bloga
Praise for The Garden of Second Chances:
“An undocumented teenager is charged with manslaughter and works to remake her life in Mona Alvarado Frazier’s searing novel. Candid when it comes to relationships, immigration issues, and the harms that young women endure and inflict upon others, The Garden of Second Chances is an affecting novel in which an at-risk youth finds the courage to move past her mistakes.”—Foreword Reviews
“Frazier masterfully limns Juana’s waning hope as she comes to terms with the fact the government that’s locked her away will likely kick her out of the country after she’s released…a persistently tense story… both narratively and emotionally satisfying.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Mona Alvarado Frazier is masterful with tension and is able to thread it through every single page. Depictions of life in prison are painfully raw and have an authenticity to them….”—Reader’s Favorite (5-star review)
“Exceptionally well written by an author with a genuine flair for the kind of narrative driven storytelling style that keeps a young reader’s total attention from first page to last … a compelling, original story with a significant message.”—Midwest Book Review
MONA ALVARADO FRAZIER is the author of The Garden of Second Chances (SparkPress, 2023). Her writing has been included in Basta! 100+ Women against Gender Violence (University of Nevada, Reno Latino Research Center, 2017) and Palabritas, a Harvard literary journal. She is a member of SCBWI and Macondo Writers and co-founder of LatinxPitch, an annual X event. She lives with her family in Oxnard, California.
