Just finished a fun and very authentic romance in which half the ‘cast’ is comprised of working class Hispanic teens. And yet, in my research, I discovered that the author is Jewish (as am I) and middle aged (as I wish I still were). She also lives somewhere near where I grew up (seriously upper middle class). In fairness, I note that she is from a Sephardic Jewish family, which means somewhere in her distant past somebody lived in Spain, but I doubt they have a relationship unless she owns a Ouija board. So how, you might ask*, did she do such a good job? Well, as one of the six people who actually read acknowledgments** I also noted that she talked to a lot of actual teens Why didn’t I think of that?

*or you might not, and who could blame you?

** Excluding people who actually were acknowledged