We Never Asked for Wings
A Novel
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4.2 • 126 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Language of Flowers comes her much-anticipated new novel about young love, hard choices, and hope against all odds.
For fourteen years, Letty Espinosa has worked three jobs around San Francisco to make ends meet while her mother raised her children—Alex, fifteen, and Luna, just six—in their tiny apartment on a forgotten spit of wetlands near the bay. But now Letty’s parents are returning to Mexico, and Letty must step up and become a mother for the first time in her life.
Navigating this new terrain is challenging for Letty, especially as Luna desperately misses her grandparents and Alex, who is falling in love with a classmate, is unwilling to give his mother a chance. Letty comes up with a plan to help the family escape the dangerous neighborhood and heartbreaking injustice that have marked their lives, but one wrong move could jeopardize everything she’s worked for and her family’s fragile hopes for the future.
Vanessa Diffenbaugh blends gorgeous prose with compelling themes of motherhood, undocumented immigration, and the American Dream in a powerful and prescient story about family.
Praise for We Never Asked for Wings
“Deftly blends family conflict with reassurance: Wings is like Parenthood with class and immigration issues added for gravitas.”—People (Book of the Week)
“This poignant story will stay in readers’ hearts long after the last page. . . . Diffenbaugh weaves in the plight of undocumented immigrants to her tale of first- and second-generation Americans struggling to make their way in America. Moving without being maudlin, this story avoids the stereotypes in its stark portrayal of mothers who just want the best for their children.”—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)
“Diffenbaugh is a storyteller of the highest order: her simple but poetic prose makes even this most classically American story sing with a special kind of vulnerable beauty.”—Bustle
“[A] gripping, heartfelt exploration of a mother’s love, resilience and redemption.”—Family Circle
“Satisfying storytelling . . . Diffenbaugh delivers a heartwarming journey that mixes redemption and optimistic insight [and] confirms her gift for creating shrewd, sympathetic charmers.”—Kirkus Reviews
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s empathetic novel explores a hot-button issue, immigration, but at its heart, it’s a story about family. After years of being mentally and emotionally checked out, Letty—an undocumented single mother in San Francisco— works to rebuild her relationships with her teenage son and six-year-old daughter when her own parents return to Mexico. Through the clan’s struggles, we get a glimpse of the kinds of hardships and uncertainty that immigrants face. But We Never Asked for Wings is no dry political tract. It’s a beautiful, relatable, and deeply moving portrait of familial relationships and healing.
Customer Reviews
Beautiful novel
This is a lovely story that resonates with you long after you have finished reading the book.
A smart, readable book...
......so rare. It was such a pleasure to come across a thoughtful, intelligent book like this one. It was not "all over the place" as one reader put it. It was a story of a family, beginning to end and their journey through life. Real, likable characters that I will miss after finishing. If you are an intelligent reader, enjoy this book. I plan to read her first one now also.