Costalegre by Courtney Maum

Lara has been whisked away to Mexico with her eccentric mother and her band of artist outcasts. In the lush jungle, this unlikely group of artists continues to create and complain, a bit lost after being forced out of Nazi Europe. Lara is our teen narrator and she navigates through her growing awareness of her own strengths and weaknesses and her ever distancing relationship with her mother. As she struggles to find herself and find her place among the artists, what she really is searching for is love and identity. The book is a continuous parallel between the calm and the violent. The jungle is calm and beautiful as a subject for art but hides deadly plants and animals as is the household where the artists and Mumma lash out in their frustration and art but the quiet ones are the people whose approval and attention matter the most to Lara. Lara is suspended between childhood with a total lack of supervision and attention and the adult world of love and the freedom to create. Based on true people and events, this slim novel speaks volumes.