Marcus is happy. His father who hits his (not-so) little brother Enrique has finally left home. Marcus has to help out more and money is tight but he is happier without him. Evenso, Marcus' life is not all good: he keeps wondering if he should have done more to protect his brother -- the same brother who is now dating the girl Marcus likes. Enrique and Marcus decide to confront their violent father and give him a taste of his own medicine with a (fake) gun. But the trip and confrontation play out in ways they never expected.

Excellent YA fodder; strong male Latino voice, great dialogue, good pacing. Adult language (lots of f bombs), sexual situations, drug use.. good for mature readers, esp. boys. ( )

Messed up family.
Blunt language.
Drugs. ( )

Hooked me in at the start but the way events followed each other more realistically than determined by a story shape didn't quite work for me. (There was a story shape, it was just more in the gaps between the events.) ( )

good book i liked it alot

First, the good stuff: [a:David Hernandez|383634|David Hernandez|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] packs a lot of powerful emotion per page in this novel, and his main character, Marcus, is a wonderful mix of reliable enough for me to trust him as a narrator, but imperfect enough to relate to. Also, this is one of those rare YA novels that I think would resonate with teenage boys, especially if they're Hispanic. Hernandez manages to honor the traits of a Hispanic family in the US without digressing into the preachy-ness that is so typical of "multicultural" children's books.Second, the not-so-good stuff: some of the plot felt kind of tacked-on for the sake of moving things forward instead of growing out of the story. The worst part of the book, no quotation marks. Trying to read a dialogue-heavy book without quotation marks=pain in the butt. ( )