Literary Merit: Good
Characterization: Fair/Good
Recommended: For public or school libraries where Van Diepen books or urban fiction books are popular
Level: High School, gr. 9-12

Grace is worried about her fifteen year old brother, Alex, who is becoming more involved with the Locos. Alex had been arrested a year ago for armed robbery with the other members of the gang. Luckily for Alex, the charges had been dropped, but Grace's senior year had been trashed and her acceptance at Miami-Dade College had been revoked due to her plummeting grades. She enrolled in online classes to try to bring her grades up and get back into the Early Childhood program at Miami-Dade, but her worries about Alex are once again threatening her chance for a better life. When her ex-boyfriend, Mateo, gets a job at the movie theater where Grace works, she seizes an opportunity to blackmail him into spending time with Alex. She and Mateo had broken up because she hadn't wanted him to join the Los Reyes gang, but now that Mateo was out of the gang, Grace thought that he could help convince Alex to steer clear of gang life as well. Things begin to heat up again between Grace and Mateo, but she senses that he's not telling her everything.

If you're looking for a romance with some gang activity thrown in for good measure, this is the book for you. I really liked Grace's character. She had a lot of grit and was determined to make a better life for herself and her brother. I appreciated the overall message (gangs are bad; stay out of them for real), but there were some flaws. I didn't understand why Grace's and Alex's dad was never around. He was a trucker, which meant that he had to be on the road a lot, but he spent a lot of time with his girlfriend in Atlanta when he could have been at home instead. Certainly after Alex's arrest, one would think that their dad would get a clue and come home more often to make sure that Alex wasn't getting into any more trouble, but that wasn't the case. He eventually became more dad-like, but it took some extreme circumstances to wake him up to the reality of Alex's situation. The ending was pretty predictable, but I was not displeased by how things worked out. ( )