Three similarities between Lola and Beli are that they lack nurturing maternal figures in their lives, make serious mistakes in their relationships with men, and have a rebellious streak.

Neither Beli nor Lola is able to lean into a nurturing maternal presence. When Beli was around two months old, her mother stepped in front of a truck and was drug to her death. Since her father was in prison, this left Beli at the mercy of her extended family. No one wanted this underweight, sickly, and very dark baby; she was thus sold to complete strangers and lived in poverty for an extended period.

Beli therefore has no firsthand knowledge about how to be the mother her own daughter needs. Lola is emotionally overwhelmed by her mother's cruelty and rebels as a means of asserting her own boundaries. She is sent away, effectively cutting her off from her mother's influence. She, too, becomes an orphan of sorts in a land far from the home she knows.

Both Beli and Lola also make some serious missteps with men. Once Beli recognizes the power of her new womanly curves, she strategically uses her movements to capture men's interests. Jack Pujols, who is the "whitest" boy she knows, begins taking her for rides in his Mercedes. He begins using her for sex; at the time, she believes that this means that she is "finally on her way" and that this is "the beginning of something big," which turns out to be a serious miscalculation. When Lola gets particularly angry with Beli, she runs away with a white boy named Aldo. She has sex with him and pretends to enjoy it; the experience is "miserable" and she believes intimacy with Aldo is the "stupidest thing [she] ever did."

Both Beli and Lola also have a strong rebellious streak. Lola rebels by becoming a "punk chick." She has a feisty personality that cuts through the superficialities of ordinary life. Lola believes that showing her mother any sign of "weakness" is unfathomable and believes that Beli is the scariest person she's ever known. Beli rebels against the norms of parenting, hitting her children anywhere, in front of anyone. Both Lola and Beli have a "wildness" in their personalities that refuses to bend to expectations.