Chronically Dolores

Starred review from December 4, 2023
Van Wagenen (Popular) draws on her experiences managing interstitial cystitis—a chronic bladder condition, as addressed in an author’s note—in her striking fiction debut. Fourteen-year-old Dolores Mendoza, who’s constantly navigating chronic pain due to her IC, is embarrassed when her condition results in a bladder-related incident at school. Suddenly ignored by her best friend and dealing with increasing tension at home surrounding her father’s financial irresponsibility, Dolores feels isolated. Hoping to escape reality, she imagines her life as a telenovela; commiserates with her gay older brother Matteo, who’s facing romantic hurdles; and periodically confides in a witty local priest despite her mother’s disapproval of religion. Then Dolores meets wise and astute autistic teen Terpsichore Berkenbosch-Jones, who rails against her own mother’s overprotective nature. Buoyant banter and Dolores’s interstitial journal entries in which she rates bathroom environments add levity to tense moments depicting Dolores’s illness and her and Terpsichore’s yearning for independence. Compassionate prose conveys the protagonists’ experiences with care and thoughtful, complex characterizations approachably highlight life’s ambiguity. Characters are racially diverse. Ages 12–up. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House.

February 1, 2024
During the summer before high school, a nominally Catholic teen finds that she can relate to martyred saints. Dolores Mendoza's family is struggling financially, and her parents' marriage is imploding. A year ago, she was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis after a bladder accident made her a pariah. Then Mexican American Dolores meets Terpsichore Berkenbosch-Jones, who is autistic and reads white. Terpsichore wants to fake a friendship to prove to her helicopter mom that she's capable of attending public school and can stop home schooling. The answer to their problems seems clear: Dolores will win back her former best friend, and Terpsichore will win her independence. What could go wrong? Dolores' chronic illness frequently causes trouble for herself, and a vein of wry humor and dramatics runs through her everyday interactions. Her creative first-person narration includes transcripts from her confessional conversations with a priest, mock telenovela scripts (complete with scene directions), and her reviews of local bathrooms. Dolores is in an ongoing standoff with her illness and comes to no pat resolutions about her body, instead approaching her illness in a way that feels true to her character and to being 14. Self-actualized and incisive Terpsichore's journey and the girls' increasingly non-fake friendship feel earned, and the affectionately combative dynamics between the Mendoza family, in particular between Dolores and her T�a Vera and older brother Mateo, are strong. An insightful, funny, and realistic coming-of-age story. (author's note) (Fiction. 12-18)

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Starred review from February 1, 2024
Grades 7-10 *Starred Review* Dolores Mendoza's life is in the toilet after she embarrasses herself in front of the entire eighth grade. Between her chronic illness (interstitial cystitis) and repeated head injuries, her best friend Shae ghosting her, and family drama, she feels really out of place. To get her out of the house, her mom signs her up for a workshop on communication and making friends, where the only other girl there about her age is awkward, direct, and puts the pieces of Dolores' life together, causing her further embarrassment. But that girl, Terpsichore Berkenbosch-Jones, is doing whatever she can to convince her overprotective mom to let her go to the public high school because being homeschooled is not how she's going to become a Tony-winning costume designer for a big Broadway show. Together, the two hatch a plot for Dolores to get her friend back and convince Terpsichore's mother that being autistic doesn't mean she can't have dreams and a life. Hitting themes of growing apart from old friends, confronting exaggerated ideas of embarrassment and rejection, learning to find accommodations and self-advocate, and understanding that people aren't always what they seem, Van Wagenen's (Popular, 2014) fiction debut is a standout with both wide appeal and important, specific representation bolstered by the author's own life.

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