Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina (review)

“Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass” is one of the first things anybody says to sophomore Piddy Sanchez at her new school. Piddy is a good student with a serious future, miles apart from the suspension-happy Latina clique from the bad neighborhood—which is probably what gets under the skin of Yaqui, that clique’s ringleader (that and the fact that Yaqui’s boyfriend has apparently noticed the curvy new girl). Yaqui’s laser focus on Piddy never seems to waver, and as her stealthy but effective bullying escalates, Piddy’s existence spirals down into a desperate and flunking misery that hits bottom when Yaqui and her girls give Piddy a substantial beatdown, filming it and posting it online. What makes this story so compelling is that it’s about Piddy in her entirety, not just about bullying; in fact, the book starts with Piddy’s lively narration focusing on her displeasure about the move and the ongoing friction with her strict mother. As Yaqui malignantly dominates Piddy’s life, she also dominates the book, so readers share Piddy’s experience of swiftly descending from normal to nightmare. Medina emphasizes Piddy’s acute sense of isolation without overplaying it, and she absolutely respects the totality of Piddy’s quandary, knowing that ham-fisted adult involvement will only make things worse. Indeed, there’s no great resolution here: Piddy ends up with a safety transfer back to her old school and some philosophical perspective on life’s unfairness but no illusions about being better for the incident. The message here is that tough and unfair stuff is really tough and unfair, but it’s also survivable; that’s a takeaway that readers will recognize as both true and valuable.