Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood

The Hollywood where Sammy Santos and Juliana Ríos live is not the one on the West Coast, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edges of a small town in southern New Mexico. The year is 1969 and Sammy and his fellow citizens of Hollywood attend Las Cruces High School where they face a world of racism, dress codes, the war in Vietnam and the everyday violence of their own barrio. In the summer before his senior year begins, Sammy falls in love with Juliana, a girl whose tough veneer disguises a world of hurt.

In Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, Benjamin Alire Sáenz captures the essence of what it meant to grow up Chicano in Smalltown America in the late 1960s. He creates a cast of characters that embody humor, toughness, innocence and survival—and in doing so, he evokes the bitter-sweet ambience found in such novels as Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show.

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood is a Young Adult Library Services Association Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Young Adults.ALA 2009 Outstanding Books for the College Bound
Americas Award, 2004
Finalist, L.A. Times Book Prize
Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults, 2005, Young Adult Library Services Association
TAYSHAS High School Reading List, 2005-2006
Pennsylvania School Librarians Association YA Top Forty
Bulletin Blue Ribbons List, 2004