This Is Our Place

September 15, 2022
A character-driven book translated from Portuguese about making your home where your heart is. Told in timelines set decades apart, the novel follows the lives of three teen residents of 8 Sunflower St. in the fictional rural Brazilian city of Lagoa Pequena. Expressing itself in a delightful voice, the narrator is the house itself; through it, readers get to know Ana, Greg, and Beto. In the 2000 storyline, Ana is a lesbian with a girlfriend who still hasn't worked up the nerve to come out to her dad. Just when things are starting to look up, she finds out that they are moving to Rio de Janeiro for his new job. In 2010, Greg is sent to his aunt's house while his divorcing parents work through things. Awkwardly, the person he feels closest to is the young woman who works as his plastic surgeon father's personal assistant. But in this new place, Greg meets someone new: Tiago, another gay teen who may or may not fit into his plan of finally having his first kiss. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic starts, and Beto is stuck with his mother and sister, navigating his complicated relationships with them. He's also trapped in a city he hates for the narrow gender roles the residents perpetuate. The reflective stories offer different perspectives on the lives and struggles of the protagonists, with heartfelt moments that readers who appreciate quiet books will enjoy. A sweet, introspective story about queer teens. (Fiction. 13-18)

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Starred review from September 26, 2022
Employing Number 8 Sunflower Street as this novel’s omniscient narrator (“I am a house. Not in the metaphorical sense... I am literally a house”), Martins (Here the Whole Time) cleverly blends three of its occupants’ experiences growing up across three decades in Lagoa Pequena, a small Brazilian town. In 2000, closeted Ana scrambles to find permanence in her relationship with her secret girlfriend, Letícia, after finding out Letícia is moving away. In 2010, Greg is sent to live with his aunt while his parents negotiate their divorce; there, he meets and crushes hard on delivery guy Tiago. And amid the 2020 Covid lockdown, Beto grapples with navigating tense relationships with his mother and sister while yearning to confess his love for an online friend. Though the house can read the thoughts of anyone inside, it has no idea what happens beyond its doors, resulting in a funny and heartbreaking look at the things the family members and friends hide from one another as they struggle to relate and connect. Martins compassionately relays the internal and external conflicts of the building’s occupants, blending three alternating timelines to illustrate how their separate lives affect each other long-term, lending a feel-good tone that instills optimism. Ages 12–up.

Starred review from December 1, 2022

Gr 9 Up-Martins's second novel is a delightful LGBTQIA+ rom-com that crosses among three teens who live in the same house, Number 8 Sunflower Street, during different years. In 2000, Ana frets about telling her single dad that she's gay and then learns that they are moving away from the house and from her girlfriend. Ten years later, Gregorio comes to visit his aunt in the same house and develops a crush on the food delivery boy. Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Roberto, his mother, and sister are housebound there and Berto tries for an online romance with a boy who has admired the photos he takes from his window. Each story is both sweet and realistic, with an adult playing a significant role in the central teen character's life. Martins adds inspired charm by making the house itself the narrator of the whole novel, a feat which makes impossible our knowing anything beyond what goes on inside the house, in its yard, or what other characters say within its hearing. There is racial diversity in the cast. VERDICT With its Brazilian setting and multiracial cast, this well-realized tale's tightly woven development delivers warmth and humor.-Francisca Goldsmith

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