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Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez

There is a lot going on in this book. It is the story a girl in Argentina who dreams of playing soccer professionally and it is also a book about the food and culture of the world that Camila Hassan is growing up in. It is an oppressively male-dominated culture in her Rosario barrio, but she finds her joy and freedom on the soccer pitch. She can't tell anyone other than her best friend that's she's on a team because her parents forbid her from playing, but the more her team wins, the harder it is to keep the secret. And the team's becoming a force to be reckoned with, largely due to her intense, skillful play. Camila's home life is rough. Her father is an abusive bully, her brother is struggling to rise in the local soccer league, and her mom is emotionally beaten down by years of verbal abuse. Diego, her brother's best friend, complicates matters when he visits home from playing professionally in Europe and pursues a relationship with her. She can't see a way to make the relationship work with him playing halfway around the world and her pursuing her dream of playing professionally in America. The secrets and stress begin to take their toll on her, and in the end some people come through for her and she comes to see what developing her own future means in terms of what she can keep and what she has to let go.

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