Fresh Off the Boat

By Melissa de la Cruz

Book Overview

Dear Peaches, America is PERFECT I love it here. I wish you could come visit -- we could go shopping on Market Street and you could meet all my new friends. . . .Okay, so Vicenza isn't being totally... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060545402
• ISBN13: 9780060545406
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 243 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.6" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

The Big Move

Vicenza is having a hard time adjusting to life in San Francisco. She was unfairly torn from her well-off life and friend in Manila, Philippines, and forced to emigrate to California, where she now shops at the Salvation Army, works in her family's cafeteria in Sears on the weekends, and is ignored by the snooty girls at her new school. Her life gets so bad that she actually goes to the movies with her family on a Friday night. Finally, V, as her friends call her, befriends Isobel, the French exchange student, who helps V see that if the other girls don't want her, she doesn't want them, and also helps Vincenza snag the boy she wants. With excellently written characters and sprinkled with emails of her new "glamorous" (fictional) life to her friend back home in Manila, this book will be relatable for any girl who has ever felt out of place.

From Rich to Poor

Vicenza's family moves to California from Manila, hoping to start a better life after a family friend embezzles all their money; but it gets a lot worse. At Vicenza's new school, Grosvernor High, she gets picked on for not wearing the newest fashion trends. Her only friend Isobel doesn't wear the newest fashions but styles of her own and still look hot in it. Vicenza's family television shoe video smuggling gets caught by the police,and is shut down. Now her family suffers with money and have to work extra hard at their cafeteria to earn more money. Once things calm down, Vicenza makes the top five slut list at Grosvernor School, as the number one slut after she is caught in the bathroom with Whitney's boyfriend Claude Caligari. Vicenza goes on her first date with Paul, a boy who works at Sears, after the aproval of her parents. They already knew him from their cafeteria, so they easily accepted the date. It was at the movies when Vicenza got her first kiss during the Stephen King Movie. I recommend this book for teens or adults who are fit for a wild narrative of a foreign teen. The book Fresh Off the Boat is realistic fiction. In this book there are stores like Sears, Mc Donalds, Outback Steakhouse,and Hechts, and movies like Stephen King and Bruce Almighty. There are also television shows like American Idol, The Real World, Fear Factor, and Primetime Live. More realistic themes in this novel are the trends. From ballroom-dancing to foxtrot, cha-cha, and the tango. Another realistic part in this book is how the characters in this book talk, act, and dress, like the teenagers actually do in real life middle and high schools. Everyone in Grosvernor High dresses in the newest trends, or at least the middle class and rich teens did. If you weren't seen in the latest trends or styles, then you are considered invisible. Vicenza parents were way over protective when it came to shopping, boys, cell phones, looks, and being totally cool. They gave Vicenza a cell phone but only because everyday they want to find out what time Vicenza was going to get to the cafe from school. Also when she was picking out a dress for the Montclair Academy-Grosvernor School for Girls Annual Soiree'd'Hiver. Vicenza's mom picked out a flashback to the 1980's dress, wtih three layers of ruffles, alternates pink and black, and has a butt bow. Instead of a more mature drees like a strapless mini dress with sparkes or a formal tank and frilly mini skirt. Whitney, Georgia, and Trish the popular Grosvernor girls did anything to pick on anyone who didn't dress in the latest trends,were recieving more attention then they were, or did anything really bad to humiliate themselves. Like when Vicenza was having trouble balancing a ball on a paddle they mimicked her all day, causing her to hide in the bathroom for the next class period. Or like when Vicenza got caught in the bathroom with Claude, Whitney's boyfriend, and they posted her name on a website, www.topfiveslutsa

A good read!

This is a good book about a fourteen year old girl who came from the phillipines for her first year of high school. She goes through different changes and tries to adapt to the American lifestyle, and also by trying to be popular at school too. This is a good book if you want to read something good or just want to read about highschool life.

Another Winner From Melissa De La Cruz!

Melissa De La Cruz is such a talented writer that the reader begins to relate to the main character(herself)instanly from the very beginning of the book. Almost all readers will relate to some of the trials of adolescence, but how many of us go through these stages immediately upon immigrating from another country and culture, along with a concommitant change in socio-economic status from upper class (elite) to lower-middle class (struggling)? The jacket of the book notes that the author is a Filopina immigrant. Like many great novels, one can detect strong autobiographical traces throughout. Maybe that is one of the reasons this book is so entertaining--the characters and scenes literally jump off the pages! Fresh Off the Boat was one of the most engaging and hilarious books I books I have read in some time.

one of my favorite books

I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone, not just Asian people. The characters are very real and the story is great. It shows how hard high school can be, even for nice people. The main character is very smart and funny and likable.