Judy Hijikata (Children's Literature)
If the usual teen immigrant story is that of a family in reduced economic circumstances, where parents work long hours and children quickly absorb the new culture all the while feeling uncomfortably unfamiliar with the social mores, Fresh off the Boat is a fast paced version of that story, filled to the brim with current cultural references. E-mail, Vespas, The Gap, Nordstrom, Tobey Macguire, and description after description of clothes form an appealing froth for the coming of age of Maria Vicenza Arambullo, otherwise known as V. V attends a private girls’ school in San Francisco. She suffers the slights of the popular girls, hoping the popular boy of her dreams will notice her. Meanwhile, her parents work long hours and carefully take part in the Filipino expatriate community. V finds friends--a girl recently arrived from France and a boyfriend who is a stock boy at Sears, and fights with and then makes peace with her mother. 2005, HarperCollins, $15.99 and $16.89. Ages 12 up.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 6))
A lonely girl "fresh off the boat" tries to fit in with the cool crowd until she learns the importance of being herself in this witty, trendy, coming-of-age story. When 14-year-old Vicenza's family emigrates from Manila to San Francisco, they exchange a life of luxury and privilege for one of lottery tickets and hard luck. Although Vicenza attends the exclusive all-girl's Grosvernor High, she is a scholarship student who spends Friday nights studying and Saturdays working in a Sears cafeteria. Embarrassed by her Salvation Army wardrobe and her culture-shocked parents, Vicenza is obsessed with her wealthy, shallow classmates and their materialistic, name-brand lifestyle. She fantasizes about going to the classy annual Soiree with "hottie" Claude, but when she finally gets a taste of the teen fast track, she discovers popularity comes at a price she's unwilling to pay. Vicenza's first-person narrative progresses from breezy banter to engaging enlightenment as she takes an honest look at her family, her friends and herself. Timely. 2005, HarperCollins, 256p, $15.99. Category: Fiction. Ages 12 up. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Karen Coates, Reviewer (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September 2005 (Vol. 59, No. 1))
Vicenza is newly arrived in America from Manila, where she was popular, rich, and happy. Here in California, even though she attends a posh girls’ school on scholarship, she barely has the cultural capital (or any other kind of capital) to pull off a life, much less a lifestyle. She does have a hopeful imagination, though, and she writes what she wishes her life were like in cheery, gushing, utterly deceitful emails to her friend Peaches back home. Meanwhile, she wades through the gossipy halls of her school in the company of her one friend (a wacky French girl with somewhat embarrassing fashion sense), helps her mom at their cafeteria in the break room at Sears after school, tapes reality TV for her cousin’s video-rental business in Manila, and shops thrift stores while reminiscing mournfully about her privileged life in Manila. An attenuated and ultimately clichéd storyline about the woes of not being on the A-list in a school where it matters hampers this potentially interesting story of wealthy immigrants falling on hard times in America; while Vicenza talks about various Filipino obsessions and her lost shopping lifestyle back home, she doesn’t really fill readers in on her school life there as a contrast to what she’s going through now. She does, however, sprinkle the text with lovingly humorous and sometimes poignant portraits of her mother and father trying to rebuild their lives in a second culture. Her ultimate realization that her relationship with her mom and a new romance with a surprisingly well-read Sears stockboy (not A-list, but still a hottie) are more important than designer dreams makes for a satisfying conclusion, and her cross-cultural perspective highlights shared values, for better or worse, in teen culture. Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2005, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, HarperCollins, 243p, $16.89 and $15.99. Grades 6-9.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2005)
Fresh off the boat" from Manila, Vincenza slowly adjusts to a San Francisco lifestyle, but with strict cultural rules, a small family budget, and few friends her transition is anything but easy. Vincenza's true character is too often buried under a clutter of themes, including culture shock, mother/daughter misunderstandings, and an unrequited crush; however, she's a lively and funny narrator. Category: Older Fiction. 2005, HarperCollins, 243pp, 15.99, 16.89. Ages 12 to 14. Rating: 4: Recommended, with minor flaws.

Sarah Rieder (The Kutztown University Book Review, Spring 2006)
Vicenza, a recent immigrant from the Philippines, finds it difficult to fit in to the American culture that she is surrounded with. The girls at Grosvernor High School are snooty. The only girl that seems to be interested in being Vicenza's friend is Isobel, a French girl with wild tastes. When Vicenza gets stuck going to the school soiree in a hideous dress and with a boy that does not suit her tastes at all, she feels trapped. However, once she realizes what is in front of her, she begins to feel at home. I enjoyed reading this book. I feel that Vicenza's character is one that other teenage girls can relate to. I feel that the book is funny in some places and that it can touch the hearts of young readers. I recommend it to the girls who feel left out of modern teenage society. Category: Fiction, Realism. 2005, HarperCollins Publishers, $16.89. Ages 13 to 16.

Donna Bode (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews, (Vol. 18, No. 2))
Fourteen-year-old Vicenza has just emigrated from the Philippines to San Francisco and is attending an all-girls school on an academic scholarship. Her family has gone from being wealthy in the Philippines to being poor in the States. Her family works multiple jobs so that Vicenza and her sister can attend the private schools. She has no friends at school until she meets another new student, Isobel, a French girl. Vicenza misses her friends from home and e-mails daily about all of her adventures, her shopping at the mall, her crush on Claude Caligari, and her popularity at school. That is what she longs for, but it is not happening. She cannot tell her friends that she is called FOB (Fresh off the Boat). This is a well-written novel, and students who are immigrants will identify with what Vicenza goes through. Fiction. Grades 9-12. 2005, HarperCollins, 243p., $16.89. Ages 14 to 18.

Michelle Winship (VOYA, August 2005 (Vol. 28, No. 3))
Vincenza Esmeralda Rodriguez Arambullo always wondered what life would be like in America. Not that her life in Manila is so bad. She has good friends, house servants, and the kind of privileged life that goes along with being the daughter of a five-star restaurateur. But that was before her family immigrated to San Francisco. Now she must shop at the Salvation Army, work in her family's cafeteria in Sears, and fantasize that the snooty girls in her private school will give her the time of day. Instead she makes friends with an odd French girl, Isobel, and attempts to catch the interest of her lab partner and big crush, Claude Caligari. Experiencing the typical teenage embarrassment that comes from being seen at the movies with her parents and from delicately avoiding her mother's fix-up with the nice Filipino nerd, Vincenza frets about the upcoming school Soiree and surviving Claude's party and its aftermath. Her "creative" e-mails to her best friend back in Manila, however, paint quite a different picture. Vincenza experiences all the angst of being the "new girl" coupled with the tension of straddling Filipino and American cultures. Readers will get an inside look at the Filipino way of life and will empathize with the likeable Vincenza in this light-hearted story full of pop-culture references that will appeal to middle-level readers. VOYA CODES: 3Q 4P M J (Readable without serious defects; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2005, HarperCollins, 256p., $15.99 and PLB $16.89. Ages 11 to 15.