Barely Missing Everything by Matt Mendez (review)

Juan doesn't believe he has a shot at the good life or even the stable, mediocre life. This seems to be confirmed when he's apprehended by police as he runs away from a busted party—the only kid charged that night—and when he discovers a letter stashed away by his mother that suggests his father is facing imminent execution on death row. There's a glimmer of hope, though: his basketball coach has promised to hook him up with a scholarship to a community college team in Arizona (not a glamorous gig, but one that will get him out of El Paso and on to a more promising life), if only he can pass all his classes, including algebra. However, just when he thinks he's got stuff under control, with a decent relationship with his grandfather, a passing grade in algebra, and an opportunity to sneak off to the federal prison and make peace with the man he believes to be his father, it all unravels—from the mistimed moment that his clueless mother shows up at school to take him shopping, to the split-second decision to hide his friends' videocam from a local gang, which seals his tragedy. Juan's story is bleak indeed, but Mendez has been carefully tracking several key players throughout, and Juan's end is also his mother's beginning, as she manages to finally learn from a lifetime of self-pitying mistakes that began in her own teen years. This may not be the conclusion readers foresee or even want, but it's a cautiously optimistic message that changing course is not an impossibility. EB