Iveliz Explains It All

Andrea Beatriz Arango is the author of the middle-grade novel-in-verse Iveliz Explains It All (2022). The titular character, Iveliz, documents her experience with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression through poems, lists, drawings, and charts. She confronts themes such as The Complexities of Mental Health Conditions, Misunderstandings Between Adults and Young People, and The Importance of Maintaining Balanced Relationships. Iveliz Explains It All, Arango’s debut novel, won a Newbery Honor (2023). Her subsequent books, Something Like Home (2023) and It’s All or Nothing, Val (2025), are also novels-in-verse.

This guide refers to the 2022 Random House edition.

Content Warning: The source text features self-harm and suicidal ideation.

Plot Summary

Iveliz Explains It All is a novel-in-verse, so the story develops through a series of poems, with poetry including lists, graphics, and blocks of prose. The poems occur in the journal of the 12-year-old seventh-grader Iveliz Margarita Snow Medina, and the book features lined paper and handwriting font. Iveliz is half Puerto Rican, and she and her family speak Spanish, so the poems are bilingual—English and Spanish.

Iveliz lives with her mother, Mami, in Baltimore, Maryland. Mami is from Puerto Rico, and Mami’s mother, Iveliz’s grandmother, Mimi, is coming to live with them. The story takes place in the present, but Puerto Rico is still recovering from the devastating Hurricane Maria (2017), and Mimi has Alzheimer’s disease.

Sometimes, Mimi forgets where she is or who’s she talking to. She refers to Iveliz as Tania (Mami’s name), and she constantly asks about Iveliz’s father, Dad. Iveliz has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, and Mimi’s Alzheimer’s disease triggers Iveliz.

Iveliz loves her father, Dad, and refers to herself as a “Daddy’s daughter.” Unlike her strict mother, Dad is playful. He comes to visit her, and he makes fun of her poems for consisting of “random thoughts” without rhymes. Dad claims he captivated Mami with poems, but Mami claims Dad never wrote a poem in his life. Dad jokes that there’s more to poetry than words. Dad’s visits grow eerie. Sometimes, she wants him to go away. As Mimi often asks Iveliz to look for Dad, Iveliz wonders if Mimi sees him too.

It is eventually revealed that Dad is dead. A few years ago, Iveliz wanted to attend a poetry slam event at a nearby bookstore. Dad said it was for adults, not kids, but Iveliz begged, and he relented. The weather was bad, and Dad crashed into a truck. Dad died, and Iveliz blames herself. If Iveliz hadn’t distracted him with a “stupid joke,” he would have been paying attention to the road. At one point, Iveliz tells Mami that she wishes Dad had lived and she had died.

School is difficult for Iveliz. Her best friend Amir is from Afghanistan. Amir tries to support Iveliz as much as he can, but their friendship is one-sided. He listens to her problems, but she can’t listen to his difficulties. Amir has a little brother who needs a heart operation.

During lunch one day, Iveliz makes another friend, Akiko. Akiko is part Japanese and part German, and boys at school make fun of her food. To get revenge, Iveliz puts smelly codfish in their lockers. The plan backfires, as Akiko thinks the scheme is “childish.” The relationship between Akiko and Iveliz is also contentious because Akiko continuously discusses Iveliz’s mental health condition with lighthearted jokes.

At school, Justin G. and the blonde-haired Jessica bully Iveliz. When they hear that Mimi is coming to visit, they refer to her as an “immigrant” and suggest that she’ll illegally enter the United States. In response, Iveliz pushes Jessica to the ground and gets in trouble. Later, Justin and Jessica steal Iveliz’s journal and read the poems out loud. Feeling out of control, Iveliz punches Justin, and the school suspends her.

Mami is unsure of how to effectively confront Iveliz’s mental health condition and the behaviors that it prompts. Mimi thinks medicine and therapy is for “crazy” people, and her granddaughter isn’t “crazy.” Mami has a different view. She sends Iveliz to a psychiatrist, whom Iveliz derisively calls Dr. Turnip. Mami also encourages Iveliz to take medication. Nevertheless, Iveliz believes her mother doesn’t care about her: She thinks Mami just wants to “fix” her.

After Mimi throws out Iveliz’s medication, Iveliz locks herself in the bathroom and considers harming herself. Mami breaks in and takes her to the emergency room. After concealing her feelings from Dr. Turnip, Iveliz opens up to him. He breaks down her negative views about adults, telling her that he and Mami want to listen to and help her, but they can’t if she doesn’t speak up.

Putting Dr. Turnip’s advice into practice, Iveliz starts speaking to Mami and her friends. She tells them about her mental health condition and how it can make her act perniciously. Mimi apologizes for her anti-mental health views, and Mami and Iveliz work together to make photo albums for Mimi so she can remember her life. Iveliz’s life isn’t suddenly perfect, but it’s much less harrowing. As she feels more comfortable confiding in people, she starts to distance herself from her journal.