wanted5stars

 

 

Modern Day Robin Hood Meets Girl from the Wrong Side of the Tracks

By Heidi Ayarbe

Balzer + Bray, 17.99, 400 pages

Heidi Ayarbe’s Wanted is a novel with guts and spunk just like her main character, seventeen year old Michal Garcia. Life has not been fair to Mike, and her goal is to get out Carson City, get out of the trailer park away from gangs and away from racism. Orphaned at a young age and raised in a southwestern town with much racial and economic tension, Mike has learned not to play by the rules.

To make money, Mike works as a bookie: she coordinates bets on sporting events. Rich, poor, Latino or white, she takes bets but never places them. When a wealthy boy with a heart for justice and an eye for Mike moves to town, she becomes wrapped up in a robin hood romance of robbing the rich to give to the poor.

Ayarbe takes a risk that many young-adult authors do not. She allows her characters to be realistic. They are flawed, and despite their intelligence, love and youthful idealism, they are naive to the ways of the world and the complexities of racial and economic power struggles in our country. If you enjoy romance, tragedy, and a tough heroine in your summer reads, Wanted will not disappoint!

Reviewed By Emily Davis

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