Drugs, crime, poverty, and a dying mother—17-year-old Minerva Guitiérrez has a job at an ice cream shop that comes with off-the-books payments, a creepy boss, and, as this fast-paced thriller opens, a terrifying attack by violent thieves attacking the cash business. So how can she possibly cope with all the lousy cards that life has dealt her?
Francesca Padilla's writing arrives with enormous integrity and realism: There are no easy solutions to Min's problems. Just as her mother is definitely going to die, Min is definitely going to suffer from the bad choices she makes, typical at first of any other teen, then increasingly dangerous.
Yet Min's strikingly clear-sighted about how she's boxed herself in:
If I'd told Mom about the hiring process and the cameras back when I first started at Duke's and she was still home, she would've stormed Anthony's office and dragged him into the street. She and Nicole always swore the women in our family have a secret brute strength in times of great distress.
But I have never told her how messed up my job or Anthony truly is. I was too relieved to have found a job at all—and even though she never said it out loud, Mom was relieved, too.
So she can't risk losing her job, can she? You already know, even if she doesn't, that the only solutions available will need her to collaborate with her friends and allies. But for a prickly teen, that's going to be almost as dark and risky as the crimes surrounding her.
Teens tend to "read older" than they are, so go ahead and share this or buy it specifically for the teen in your life. Then make sure to fit in some discussion time. We need less nightmares in our lives as we grow up—Min needs to open up, and so do the young readers of this well-written and challenging novel.
PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
