"Hurricane Friends" is one of several stories published in the collection Fitting In. They all focus on young Cuban Americans learning to thrive in Florida. Bernardo has also published a novel, Jumping Off to Freedom (1996; see separate entry, Vol. 9), that tells of the harrowing passage across the sea between Cuba and Florida by people escaping the restrictive society of communist Cuba, who hope to find the freedom to build good lives for themselves in the United States.