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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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Pub date November 16, 2021

ASIN B09JPGJ12J

Price $4.99 Kindle edition

Author interview

Fanning returns with this engaging, relevant YA contemporary. Seventeen-year-old Nat Reams is right on track for a basketball scholarship, but when he interrupts one of his teachers assaulting the reserved, straight-A student, Molly Martinez, he finds it hard to control his rage and decks the teacher. Now with the school expulsion looming on his head, the scholarship seems like a distant dream. And Molly doesn’t want him to talk about the incident at all. Although the intriguing central concept will draw the reader in, it’s the deeply authentic, fully-fleshed out characters who will keep them engaged. Both the protagonists and the secondary cast come out as incredibly real people who undergo intense, thoroughly believable pain. The issue of migrant exploitation stays at the center of the story, but the novel hinges on the relationships between Nat and Molly and those dear to them. Powered by impressively realistic, sympathetic characters, immersive worldbuilding, intriguing storyline, and an engrossing narrative that adeptly incorporates significant themes of courage, trust, immigration issues, family ties, friendship, love, and integrity, this novel will appeal to fans of both YA contemporary and literary fiction. A stunner.

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