In the book The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz , Sáenz has display a story about a senior boy name Salvador who have a loving Mexican- American family including his grandmother, which he calls “mima” and his adopted gay father. He began to develop many uncontrollable changes and feelings that even himself can not understand such as questioning everything. In contrast to Sal, his friends, Samantha and Fito face a harsh life since their parent’s “love isn’t perfect”(Sáenz 159) when their parents treat them with awful manners. At the end, everyone’s life conditions have improve that both Sam’s and Fito’s mother die and the friends got help from each other. However, the readers were still left hanging because there were many “loose ends”. If the story was expressed in Samantha’s point of view, since she is an open hearted person, it would be more clear as to why she dislike certain characters, why she decides to forgive certain people that has hurt her terribly, and it would also explains how Samantha visualize herself.

Samantha is a very open hearted and straightforward person according to Sáenz so it is most likely that she will uncover all details giving the readers a better perspective of each characters and their characteristics along with their personalities. Although she dislikes certain characters for unusual reasons such as Fito because ‘“he doesn’t walk, he slinks”’ and ‘“add sh*t to the end of every sentence”’ (Sáenz 26), that is only what she say to Sal, the readers do not actually know what happened between them or if he has other poor characteristics. Even though Fito was described as an intelligent person, his life conditions have caused him to be depressing, suffer and isolate himself from the outer world. Samantha also ‘“did not like Marcos very much”’(Sáenz 200). Beside the fact that Marcos have left Vicente (Sal’s father), how could Samantha disfavor someone just because they did not go to the movie with her. It could be possible that she knows more informations than Salvador does since he mostly stayed home.
Also, Samantha has been hurted by Eddie both physically and emotionally when she called Sal to come pick her up at Walgreen without telling him why. When Sal and his father rushed to arrive, they saw that Sam’s blouse was all torned. She was panicking and sobbing, she didn’t even want to tell her mother (Sylvia) nor Sal and Vicente what had happened to her. The readers here can partly predict what Eddie has done to her. Several days later, Salvador saw Sam and Eddie talking cheerfully as if nothing has happened. He reacted against it by pulling them apart and speaking to Eddie with cruelness and slap from Sam went straight across his face. They later have a little talk and Sal have now discover from Sam saying ‘“he was apologizing, you stupid sh*t.”’(Sáenz 296) but still, Sal wasn’t sorry for what he did. Why would Samantha be on Eddie’s side when her best friend was trying to protect her? Without knowing the details of what really happened, it was impossible to explain the reasons why she would stand on Eddie’s side.

After so many things revolving around Sam’s life including the car accident that has cause the death of her mother, Sam no longer seems to trust herself as much as before. What everyone including Salvador see of Samantha was a smart, brave, outgoing, and straightforward and was nearly living for other people. Readers can’t see how she sees herself. When invited to come live with Salvador and his dad after the death of Sylvia, she seemed so doubtful when asking ‘“can I do that?”’(Sáenz 162) as if she felt like she doesn’t deserve to. Samantha always seem so fearless, is that really her true self? The majority of the scenes after her mother died was only Sam in her room sleeping or crying and blaming everything she doesn’t perform well on the death of her mother. She later got over it but still brings it up to compare her and Sal. It can be possible that her personalities either could have changed there or because of Eddie who made her lack the confidence she had before.

Overall, maybe this book can be better if the author switch the main character and point of view to Samantha. From Sal’s viewpoint, not enough information about his background such as his mother’s name (until the very end) and what he believes was revealed. Samantha, on the other hand, nearly every pieces of her background information was described. Sáenz, the author left the readers in confusions even at the end of the book including having no clues about Sal’s father’s whereabouts nor his true personality. Despite the fact that the readers do not know Samantha’s thoughts and feelings, there seems to be a lot of things going on in her life compare to Salvador, who mostly sits at home and wait for Samantha and Fito(Adam) to come and make food for them. The only interesting thing about Salvador was the fact that he’s “throwing punches, questioning everything, and discovering that he is no longer who he is” (Sáenz, cover) and how he will overcome it. However, there was no solution to it and he had to live with his uncontrollable actions and feelings throughout the story.