Five Midnights by Ann Dávila Cardinal could have been a fascinating supernatural mystery set against the backdrop of Puerto Rico, but instead, it ends up feeling like a messy pile of privilege, colorism, and bad character work.
The main character, Lupe, is… insufferable. Her whole personality boils down to angsting about not fitting in because she looks white rather than Puerto Rican, and she reminds you of that nearly every other page. Instead of offering a nuanced look at identity, it reads like privilege masquerading as struggle. The book feels like it was written by someone with Puerto Rican heritage who didn’t grow up on the island.
Lupe isn’t headstrong or brave, like most of the other “Not Like Other Girls” MCs, she’s just rude, ignorant, and constantly making reckless decisions that make you roll your eyes. She brags about traveling alone to Puerto Rico at sixteen as if that makes her grown, when in reality, she’s staying with family the whole time. That’s not independence, that’s a curfew. There’s a certain level of irony in her constantly taking shots at her alcoholic dad while she herself runs off, lies to the cops, and sneaks into dangerous slums.
And then there’s the scene that made me officially dislike the protagonist. Lupe tries to barge into a church after a funeral, argues with the dead boy’s grieving sister when she tells her no, and then when her uncle, not only the actual adult (and cop) in the room, steps in to deescalate the situation, Lupe literally puts up her hand and says, “I’ll handle this.” Girl, you are sixteen. SIT DOWN. To make matters worse, when Javier tries to defend her, she scolds him with the tired “I don’t need you to fight my battles for me” line. Twice. At that point, I was done with her.
The other characters don’t save this book either. The boys are flattened into stereotypical gang members and drug dealers, making the whole thing reek of colorism and outsider assumptions about Puerto Rican culture. Instead of feeling lived-in or authentic, it reads like someone’s idea of the island after a handful of visits, stripped of depth and reduced to clichés.
As a Puerto Rican, I wanted to like this story, but Lupe’s unbearable arrogance combined with the shallow, stereotypical representation of Puerto Rico made this a no for me.
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