October 10, 2023 by Candlewick Press
ARC provided by Young Adult Books Central
In this prequel to Undercover Latina, we meet Amani, who lives with her mother, who is a doctor, and her father who is a research scientist who frequently is gone on longer projects. Amani goes to a private school where she often feels belittled by her white classmates, who often give her a hard time because she is full figured, but her mother wants her to have the best education she can get. When a creepy man appears near her house several times in a menacing fashion, Amani reluctantly calls the police. Both she and her mother are wary of the police for several good reasons, including the fact that the mother believes the stalker might be a former boyfriend who is in law enforcement. When their house is set on fire, Amani's mother pulls her from school and they go to a different part of town to stay with Niema, a family friend who was her Harambee class teacher. Niema helps Amani get settled at Roosevelt High School (going by the name Imani), which is a culture shock for her. For the first time, she is with people who share her ethnic background but have a different socioeconomic one. Her curves get a different type of unwanted attention, this time from boys, who make rude and unwelcome comments. She does meet Ella and her brother Dexter, who are very instrumental in getting her to adjust to her new environment, but there are lots of things going on in Amani's life. Her father has gone dark, and her mother reveals some family secrets that tie into the spy organization The Factory from Undercover Latina. Her father has run afoul of a drug cartel, and when there is an incident at a school dance, Amani and her mother find themselves on the run to Cancun. Will they be able to remain safe? And will Amani be recruited to work for The Factory?
Amani is a strong character who occasionally struggles with the sheer number of micro and macroaggressions aimed at facets of her body that she can't change. Her mother has tried to make sure she has coping mechanisms, and is very body positive, but it's hard to keep up the fight when the attacks are so constant. Ella, who shares many of Amani's traits but is also gay, is much more vocal, and she encourages Amani to speak up for herself. It's good to see that Dexter gives Amani appropriate attentions, and there is a sweet romance between the two.
It took me a while to remember that Amani appears in Undercover Latina as an agent who helps Andréa learn to play cards for a Triángulo tournaments, but it was interesting to see another perspective of how a teen becomes an agent for the spy group.
While Amani is fifteen, this reads very much like a middle grade book, although it does have enough action and adventure, as well as social commentary, to be enjoyed by older readers as well. Spy stories are always popular with teens and tweens, but many of the older spy books like Carter's Gallagher Girls or Benway's Also Known As, have characters that read mainly as white. It's great to see a wider variety of cultural backgrounds represented in the spy world, and to see timely cultural touchpoints addressed in this genre.
September 19, 2023 by Margaret K. McElderry Books
Copy provided by Young Adult Books Central
Scottie is starting back to high school after truly horrific events; her sister was driving a car with the popular football coach, Jory Wilson, in the passenger seat when she drove straight into a wall, killing them both. There were some odd things about the accident scene, but Scottie is getting the most grief about information she revealed afterwards; her sister Cait had been raped by the coach. Reeling from the deaths, many people in the school have chosen to give Scottie a hard time, including her former friends Amber and Jasper, who got a lot of help from the coach, and Lissa, whose father was the coach's best friend. Even Dr. Mead, the principal, holds Scottie responsible for "drama" going on in school, such as dog poop being put in Scottie's locker. After several humiliating experiences, Scottie finds herself saying that she is going to run an ultramarathon. She even attends the Exercise Physiology class, run by Dr. Senda, and runs a 5K race on the track wearing jeans an old tennis shoes that she wore on hours long walks in the woods all summer. She finishes, but falls near the end and bashes herself up. The other students make fun of her, but Senda admires her tenacity. Her mother, an art professor, is on unpaid leave, and spends most of her time drinking or going out with her boyfriend, Mac, instead of paying attention to Scottie. Scottie has been self-harming, pouring boiling water on her hands and making the blisters worse, and running gives her the same kind of release that causing herself pain does. She buys equipment, commits to running a longer race, and even gets a job at the local running store, working for Senda's son, Ichiro. This also causes some problems, as Amber works at the store, and Coach Wilson's widow shows up there. Scottie does have some support from her friend Nico, a gymnast who suffered an injury in Cait's presence on the very day of her accident. Scottie joins a running group, and continues to put up with problems at school, but things get worse when Mac tells her that he has taken her mother to a drug rehab facility after an accidental alcohol poisoning overdose. Not knowing what to do, and feeling unsafe in her home, Scottie sleeps at the running store. She is found by the owner, Claude, whose son Jacques was devastated by his coach's death. He and his wife take Scottie in, and she is relieved by to have some stability in her life. She is in therapy, which helps a little, and continues to run, which helps a lot. Eventually, she and Nico uncover information about the day of the accident. Was Cait really guilty? The truth is even darker than anyone imagined.
This Young Adult title includes mentions of suicide, self-harm, and rape, but does not go into details. It is also circumspect in its language and situations. Nolan, whose 1997 Dancing on the Edge and 2011 Pregnant Pause also tackle tough issues, does a fantastic job of scaffolding Scottie's extensive personal and social problems on the horrific situation of her sister, and the unfolding mystery of what really happened. On top of that, this is an ode to the curative powers of running that had a lot in common with The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances
by Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal).
Scottie is an incredibly resilient character who is dealing with more than any teen ever should have to. Her mother is completely devastated by the events, and takes no care of Scottie at all. It was good to see that she at least had Claude and his wife, that she was in therapy with a doctor she liked, and that she had Nico in her corner.
The mystery was also intriguing, and had a similar feel to the pell-mell investigations in Otis' At the Speed of Lies. I don't want to ruin the twists and turns, but did enjoy that fact that Scottie and her sister were vindicated in the end because the truth was even more devastating that what Scottie thought had happened.
Running is often used in Young Adult Fiction to showcase how to deal with grief, and this is another great book to add to a list that contains Toor's On the Road to Find Out, Van Draanen's The Running Dream, and Currinder's Running on Empty. The ultra marathon race has only been covered in Carroll's 2013 Ultra, which is one of my favorites.
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