Blog Tour Book Review: The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez

From the publisher:

From debut author and longtime zine-maker Celia C. Pérez, The First Rule of Punk is a wry and heartfelt exploration of friendship, finding your place, and learning to rock out like no one’s watching. 

There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school—you can’t fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle School’s queen bee, violates the school’s dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better as long as she remembers the first rule of punk: be yourself.

The real Malú loves rock music, skateboarding, zines, and Soyrizo (hold the cilantro, please). And when she assembles a group of like-minded misfits at school and starts a band, Malú finally begins to feel at home. She’ll do anything to preserve this, which includes standing up to an anti-punk school administration to fight for her right to express herself!

Black and white illustrations and collage art throughout make The First Rule of Punk a perfect pick for fans of books like Roller Girl and online magazines like Rookie.

My thoughts:

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Pérez really nails the middle school experience, the angst of moving far from home, and the irritation youth this age feel with their parents and other authorities. Malú is a well drawn, entirely sympathetic character who will hold large appeal for the intended audience. I was a little skeptical at first of the idea of including zines in this novel, and yet Pérez has seamlessly woven them into the story and used them to do a great deal of ‘show, not tell’ while illuminating the inner life of the main character. I especially liked the inclusion of Spanish language terminology and had a good deal of fun looking up words that were new to me.

Author Bio:

Celia C. Pérez has been making zines inspired by punk and her love of writing for longer than some of you have been alive. Her favorite zine supplies are a long-arm stapler, glue sticks, and watercolor pencils. She still listens to punk music, and she’ll never stop picking cilantro out of her food at restaurants. Originally from Miami, Florida, Celia lives in Chicago with her family and works as a community college librarian. She owns two sets of worry dolls because you can never have too many. The First Rule of Punk is her first book for young readers.

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