“I thought about how I wanted my life to be in the future. I had a responsibility not only to myself, but to my daughter. What I decided, I decided for my child. What I did, I did to her or for her. I had to survive.”
Notice: thank you to SparkPress for providing me an advanced reader’s copy of this book. This does not affect my opinion.
Content warning: domestic/intimate partner violence, suicide, depression, miscarriage, racism, immigration/deportation
She didn’t run because she killed him, she ran because she didn’t. But no one believes Juana, an undocumented seventeen-year-old incarcerated for her husband’s death. Amid the chaos of prison and her grief, she creates a garden in the yard. A safe space. A place where she gains strength to take on the system before she loses her child.
Juana, a seventeen-year-old mother, is sentenced to prison for murdering her husband. She claims she’s innocent—but no one believes her, including the prison staff and a gang leader in her block who torments her.
Juana’s troubles aren’t confined to prison, however—she’s undocumented, and her husband’s bereaved family is now threatening to take her baby from her forever. Feeling hemmed in on all sides and desperate to stay out of trouble, Juana creates her own refuge in the prison yard: a garden she created. As she digs in the soil, nurturing the plants, she remembers her courageous, long-deceased mother, who she knows would never give in or give up. Juana’s only hope for saving herself and her baby is to prove her innocence—but how?
Welcome to another young adult book that addresses pressing societal issues head-on. The Garden of Second Chances follows our seventeen-year-old protagonist Juana, a Mexican girl in America, as she enters and navigates the American prison system. Juana has been charged with the death of her husband, from whom she fled because of his violence towards her and their infant daughter Katrina. However, something isn’t adding up: Juana swears she didn’t kill him.
This title opens strong. We’re riding along with Juana on the bus to San Bueno Correctional Facility where she has been sentenced to three years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. The imagery is compelling: Juana is sweating, shaking, and nauseous. She’s trying to take in the scenery around her before her impending reality of only being able to see behind metal bars. As soon as she gets off the bus, she vomits. Her nerves are swirling like never before. She’s trying to come up with a game plan of how to get through the next three years in prison despite being innocent and speaking very little English.
The bulk of this book details Juana’s daily life in prison. Through her interactions with other inmates, we learn not only of Juana’s life but also of the lives and circumstances of the cast of girls surrounding her. Each story is difficult to take in and evokes strong emotions from readers throughout the novel. For example, one girl is in prison for accidentally assaulting a police officer during an immigration rights protest that turned violent (she was getting attacked from multiple sides and had no way of knowing one was a police officer). Another girl is in prison for miscarrying a nonconsensual pregnancy in a school bathroom (she didn’t even know she was pregnant and was merely trying to forget what happened).
The stories of these girls are compelling, raw, and real. It is very clear that Frazier incorporated her career knowledge of working with incarcerated youth into this debut novel. It is also very clear that these stories are contemporary possibilities. Through group sharing, the girls are able to support each other by collectively carrying the emotional burdens.
“Mi abuelita had a dicho: ‘Decirle a una mujer todo lo que no puede hacer es decirle lo que ella puede hacer.'”
Babydoll, page 218
Bringing the focus back to Juana, two main things stood out to me about this title: 1) Juana’s revelations surrounding the inequities of the American prison system, and as a result, 2) her character arc. As mentioned, Juana begins her time in San Bueno knowing very little English. She learns English through her classes in prison and with the help of another inmate who teaches her. As she begins to broaden her English capabilities, she begins to learn about the various laws that outline inmate rights, such as the right to transportation to important hearings paired with the right to have an interpreter at said hearings, the right to an attorney, the right to request records, etc. In pieces, Juana begins to understand that she was not given a fair chance to prove her innocence because she was not given the proper tools or all of the information regarding her case at the time of her sentencing. She begins to understand that she has to fight the prison staff for this information and that results may vary depending on the staff she asks for help.
The slow excavation of the injustices that Juana faced during her conviction process is deeply troubling as it serves as a reminder that these are very real circumstances that real people face. While the efficacy and ethics of prison are hot-button debates, it is no question that prison is a business. It is also no question that racism and prejudice do not stop at the gates of prison, and can also disproportionately impact inmates of color like Juana. As she jumps over hurdle after hurdle to gain access to information about her conviction and the ongoing custody battle for Katrina, she can’t help but wonder how many other girls have also been unfairly sentenced.
“How many other girls in here hadn’t read their police reports? Or were without an attorney to spend time with them? Or who didn’t understand the court process? How many of them had longer sentences because not all the facts were given to the court?”
-Juana, page 304
By the final 50 pages, Juana has overcome numerous barriers. She is no longer the meek girl she was on her first day. She has dealt with grief day in and day out. She has learned to advocate for herself and protect herself. Most importantly, she has learned how to have agency over her story.
“Who was I now? A prisoner, a mother, a Mexican in America. A victim of domestic violence like LaLa said in group? I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I was a young woman who had gone through a lot. I was all those things.”
-Juana, page 328
My critique of this book is limited to two things. The first critique is that I felt that the title and cover imagery is misleading, as it leads prospective readers to believe that Juana spends a lot of time in the prison garden that she cultivates. This is not true. The garden doesn’t appear until almost 60% of the way through the book, and from there, it is featured sporadically. I saw another reviewer offer the idea that the garden is a metaphor for perseverance, and while that may be true, I was rather disappointed that it didn’t receive as much page space as I initially thought it would.
My second critique addresses the ratio of page space given to Juana in prison vs. out of prison. While I understand that the bulk of the writing is intentionally focused on Juana’s life while in prison, I couldn’t help but want more time with her once she was out of prison. I wanted to see more of her reconciliation process with her family, friends, and most importantly, with her daughter. I wanted to see her reintegration process and what she chose to do with the lessons she learned while in prison. The fact that her post-prison life is summarized in only ten pages was a grave disappointment because I feel like there was more to her story outside of the walls of the San Bueno Correctional Facility.
Thank you again to SparkPress for the advanced reader’s copy of this title. The Garden of Second Chances shares themes similar to another powerful YA book Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher. Here is my review for that title if you would like to keep reading works regarding immigration rights.
Cierra's Cynosure 
Your review certainly helps me decide what to read next. This sounds good and I’m so interested in the topics this book represents.
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