1. A book written in North America: Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa

List Progress: 5/30

Every story under the sun can have and be about queer people. If Canto Contigo, the 2024 YA novel by Jonny Garza Villa, succeeded at nothing else, it would still be refreshing in that it is in no way a coming out story; both sides of the main couple are secure in their openly queer identities before the story starts. But Canto Contigo succeeds in so many more aspects, being a moving love story, a meditation on grief, and a peek into a specific subculture. And beyond all else, it’s just a fun book.

Canto Contigo follows Rafie Alvarez, a Mexican-American teenager who heads his high school’s award-winning mariachi band. He not only loves mariachi and is proud of his prowess, but feels like he absolutely has to be the best in order to honor the memory of his beloved grandfather who passes at the opening of the novel and taught Rafie everything he knew. But in his senior year of high school Rafie’s family moves to San Antonio, where he is thrust into a new mariachi band that already has a lead singer, who just so happens to be the cute boy that he met at a party the year prior. His attraction to the charming Rey threatens to stand in the way of his determination for complete victory in the yearly state-wide mariachi competition. His raw grief for his grandfather has mixed with his own egotism and is at war with his budding feelings and his better self in a bundle of teenage angst and raw pain. But music and mariachi are about love and it is up to Rafie to find the many types of love around and within him again.

Canto Contigo is a great example of a book that becomes universal by virtue of being so specific. A reader may not know a thing about mariachi or Mexican-American culture, but they know what it was or is like to be a teenager feeling all sorts of feelings and experiencing real grief for the first time. The only stumbling block for some readers may be how often characters speak a mix of English and untranslated Spanish, as Texan teenagers like Rafie and Rey would and do, but most of it is clear from context. And if the dialogue inspires any young or not-so-young readers to learn some Spanish of their own, so much the better. The narrative beats are fairly familiar for anyone who reads romance, but they are all executed well, and outside of the core romance, Rafie’s relationships with his friends and family are fleshed out and full of life. Garza Villa has created a rich world and a fun journey for these characters, one that many readers would be happy to go on.

Would I Recommend It: Very much so.