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 … 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
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I was hooked from the first breathtaking pages of We Never Asked for Wings, caring about this exquisitely vulnerable family, hoping right along with them on every page that each heart-rending, impossible choice would lead them somewhere better together.
As some of the reviewers have mentioned, this is a story about how determination and hard work can help you overcome bad decisions a person makes in life. And one thing is absolute, this book was full of bad decisions…some for selfish reasons and others out of a sense of caring.
While this book will make your heart ache, you will also cheer on the family members as they mature and as they learn what it means to care so deeply for another person. You will get an indepth view of each character along with their flaws and mistakes, their positive moments and gifts, and the way they can make a difference in the lives of others.
What a great story!! Letty’s journey is one that many of us can relate to – forced into a situation where you have to do the right thing. And she faces the challenge head-on, learning about life and how to really love along the way.
This is a very touching story. The writing is spectacular and the story grabbed me from the beginning. You have to love the characters…they are fighters and want what’s best for those they love. I would give this more than 5 stars if I could!
Kind of a sweet story built around poverty and a hard life.
For those who love children and dogs this book delves into children with many types of health or genetic behaviour problems and shows how a despairing adult can be helped by a threpy dog.
I really like this authors writing style, I loved her first book The Language of flowers, and this book was equally as good. I tend to really enjoy stories with interesting characters and the way they relate to each other. This is a book of family dynamics, which in this case are quite complicated. This is about a Mexican/American family, living in San Francisco. The main character Letty, not married but with two children, a mother but never a real mom, as her kids were raised by their Grandmother. Letty worked and was basically irresponsible, living with her parents in a rough area overlooking the airport, meant going to tough schools, for the kids. The Grandfather never wanting to leave the area, as he studied the birds that would migrate through the marshes where they lived, collecting their feathers, year after year, but when the Grandparents decide to move back to Mexico the family has to change, throwing Letty and the kids into a life they were not used to. A lot happens as they try and form their new relationships and I will let you discover what that is
The book has a great story line and holds the readers interest. The characters are well developed, I felt anger for some and empathy for others. It offers a realistic look at illegal immigration. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to others.
uplifting
Vanessa Diffenbaugh is an interesting author. Tells a great story.
With all the talk about illegal immigrants, this book is timely.
It seemed appropriate to read this amidst the current immigration crisis.
I absolutely adored this book! So well written and the story kept me yearning for the next chapter. I cried and cheered for the characters. I highly recommend this book! Enjoy!
I really loved this book. The writing was wonderful and I learned a lot about people I was unfamiliar with and should have thought about with more compassion. I was happy to get to know these people and liked them!
Page turner. Great book about the plight of immigrants and their innocent children.
The dear author wrote a good story. She had some details wrong. The errors that teenagers make affect them their entire lives and she got that message out clearly. There seemed to be a bit too much chatter about what people were wearing. It left kind of a bad taste in my mouth – as if the narrator herself was immature but that may or may not have been intentional.
This is gorgeously written and well plotted but its the gut wrenching reality of life that held it all for me as a reader. I loved The Language of Flowers and aspects that I liked about that one is present as well here. But in many ways this had me pausing frequently between pages only because what the character of Letty was going through, as well as Carmen and Yesenia’s circumstances, held more significance for me as a reader. I know these women, what they are going through, what they are feeling what choices they made in life to have a better one. The social issues are incorporated in the plot that it becomes a great device to move the story forward but the soul of this is about life, that choices we made sometimes isn’t really a mistake but a way to adapt to survive, that regardless of culture and social circumstances we all have wings, we all are meant to fly, sometimes we lose directions but we all come back home.
One of my favorite books to date…loved, loved, loved it!
Unexpected plot twists. Thoroughly entertaining. The characters stay with you like friends.
Gives insight on immigration.