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Reviewed by:
  • The Closest I've Come by Fred Aceves
  • Deborah Stevenson
Aceves, Fred The Closest I've Come. HarperTeen/HarperCollins,
2017 [320p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-248853-4 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-248987-6 $9.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-10

Marcos Rivas is fifteen, and he's growing up poor in the mostly Latino and black Maesta neighborhood of Tampa. His alcoholic mother chooses her boyfriends over him, which is why the incumbent, Brian, can abuse Marcos at will without anybody intervening. He loves his friends, especially brainy Obie, who wants to be a physicist, but what Marcos really longs for is a girlfriend, and he's smitten with fearless, punky Amy. The pacing and momentum of the story are uneven, but the picture of life with few options under the hot Florida sun is effective, and there's a refreshing subversion of literary expectation: Amy ends up a friend but not a girlfriend, and Marcos' mom has a brief regretful period but then slips back into her old ways. Marcos is a sympathetic narrator with an age-predictable helping of knuckleheadedness—a tendency to get impulsively physical, for instance—but he's a thoughtful kid who's being tanked by circumstances. The accessible writing brings this story to a wide range of readers, and kids with their own trajectory-limiting obstacles will feel for Marcos. DS

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