Great message of 'knowing when to let others help you' with a wholesome set of characters in PR. I enjoyed the art style and how it wasn't afraid to get cartoony at times. ( )

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley.)

After Hurricane Maria touches down in Puerto Rico, Violeta's Abuelita comes to stay with her family in Florida. Although Abuelita's home and business - a restaurant called La Casita - are thankfully left standing, they aren't without damage and are nevertheless uninhabitable without water or electricity. Several months later, as the island is rebuilding, Violeta and her parents accompany Abuelita back to Puerto Rico, to help her get settled - and get La Casita back up and running again.

As excited as Violeta may be, she quickly learns that the adults don't have much use for a pint-sized helper. Luckily, she becomes fast friends with Diego and Lorena, the most delightfully geeky pair of besties you've ever seen: Diego is a mechanical engineer, while Lorena is a computer wiz. Their current project? Building their own bike, called the Direna Cycle. That, and helping the adults hunt down a chupacabra, whether they know it or not.

Complicating the island's recovery is a series of strange livestock attacks - the animals' necks are severed, and their bodies drained of blood - that's hitting Abuelita's meat supplier especially hard. Lorena's uncle, Señor Soto, is the resident monster-hunter on the island - but, naturally, he won't accept any help from his niece, a kid. Tired of watching the adults struggle, the trio vows to find the chupacabra on their own. Never mind that Violeta doesn't believe in chupacabras - that is, until one saves her life!

Chupie is nothing like the savage, blood-thirsty monster of legend. Really, he's more of a puppy than anything else - if a scaly one, at that. Rather than turn him over, Violeta decides to hide him in Abuelita's shed. But, wracked with guilt over lying to her newfound friends, Violeta quickly comes clean - and her secret threatens to tear the trio apart. When Chupie goes missing - a possible victim of mythological creature trafficking - can Violeta, Lorena, and Diego come together to rescue him?

SAVING CHUPIE is an absolute delight - easily one of my favorite reads of 2023. The artwork is adorable AF, and the story line is a real tear jerker. In the advance praise on the inside cover, Yehudi Mercado likens SAVING CHUPIE to "E.T. in Puerto Rico" - but I think HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS might be a more apt comparison, with a touch of Rachel Vincent's MENAGERIE sprinkled on top. (I'm a huge fan of all three, so.)

There are so many threads that pulled at my heart. First and foremost, Chupie: dear, sweet Chupie, loyal to a fault, a boopable lil' guy who just wants to get back to his family, demonized for nothing other than his otherness. (Spoiler alert: Chupie is not the monster in this book.)

One of my favorite parts of HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS is the scene where Harry buries George's hunting "trophies" - along with Grandma's mink stole and the evening's roast - in a shallow grave in the back yard, recognizing that these animals are not that much different from him - and the Hendersons. While there isn't such an explicitly animal-friendly thread in SAVING CHUPIE - for example, the status of the "livestock" is never called into question - hopefully some readers will connect the dots.

(The very end, when ALL the mythical creatures escape into the wild? For me, this underscores the fact that Chupie is not the only nonhuman animal who deserves to live his life free from exploitation. Perhaps some readers will widen that circle of compassion even further.)

Violeta is a compelling protagonist; a bit of an outsider, she arrives in Puerto Rico desperate to make friends - and she finds fellow "weirdos" in Lorena and Diego. While Chupie - or rather, economic anxiety - creates a rift in this friend group, all is right by story's end. Each kid is adorable to a fault, and I love how they lift each other up. Violeta's relationship with her parents and Abuelita is beautiful as well - especially how the whole family (and community, really) rallies around Abuelita.

SAVING CHUPIE is a wholesome story - comfort food, really - about loneliness; family, both found and blood; the power in accepting help when you need it; loyalty and bravery; and compassion, of course. ( )