Heidi Ayarbe grew up in Nevada and has lived all over the world. She now makes her home in Colombia with her husband and daughter. She is also the author of Compulsion, Compromised, and Freeze Frame.
Wanted
by Heidi Ayarbe
Hardcover
$12.68
$17.99
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- ISBN-13: 9780061993886
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication date: 05/01/2012
- Pages: 400
- Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.50(d)
- Age Range: 14Years
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Sanctuary.
A one-word text message: That's all Michal "Mike" Garcia needs to gather a crowd. Mike is a seventeen-year-old bookie, and Sanctuary is where she takes bets for anyone at Carson City High with enough cash. Her only rule: Never participate, never place a bet for herself.
Then Josh Ellison moves to town. He pushes Mike to live her life, to feel a rush of something—play the game, he urges, stop being a spectator.
So Mike breaks her one rule. She places a bet, feels the rush.
And loses.
In an act of desperation, she and Josh—who has a sordid past of his own—concoct a plan: The pair will steal from Carson City's elite to pay back Mike's debt. Then they'll give the rest of their haul to those who need it most. How can burglary be wrong if they are making things right?
Wanted will thrust readers into the gritty underbelly of Carson City, where worth is determined by a score, power is derived from threat, and the greatest feat is surviving it all.
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Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)
Praise for COMPULSION: “Ayarbe gives Jake a compelling and convincing narrative voice that is both poignant and earthy. This achingly believable novel is highly recommended for libraries serving young adults.Booklist (starred review)
Praise for COMPULSION: “Ayarbe exercises both enormous skill and restraint getting to the root of just how debilitating OCD can become .... A gripping, claustrophobic read.ALA Booklist
Wanted is a well-written, suspenseful, even violent book made more troubling by the authenticity and likability of its characters. Readers will ache as they read this page-turner.VOYA - Joanna Lima
Michal Garcia has a bright future ahead: the Mexican American senior has just earned a full scholarship to a big university. She is also a bookie at her Carson City high school, interacting with fellow students across race and class as she takes their money and places their bets, never making a gamble herself. As tension builds between rival gangs in her community, Michal tries to reconcile her trailer-park upbringing with her deepening relationship with Josh Ellison, the rebellious heir apparent to the local Ellison Industries fortune. Michal watches from the sidelines as privileged white teens and dirt poor Mexican teens clash in increasingly violent altercations. When a bratty blonde begins tossing around racist comments about immigrants and the hard-working mother of her childhood friend falls ill, Michal staggers at the unfairness of life. She and Josh devise a plan to mete out their own sense of justice: rob from those who have too much and distribute the loot among those who need help the most. Suddenly gambling with enormously high stakes, someone is bound to lose, and the price may be so high that no one emerges a winner. Ayarbe does not shrink from the gritty, depressing reality of twenty-first-century American race and class issues, or from the uncertainty as to how the future will unfold. Despite her own insecurities, Michal emerges as a clear voice in an important conversation. With just enough romance and a fair amount of suspense, this realistic story prompts dialogue about a difficult topic. Reviewer: Joanna LimaKirkus Reviews
A young bookie finds herself on the wrong side of the odds. For 17-year-old bookie Michal Garcia, life used to be simple: She recorded bets, collected and distributed cash and splurged on expensive clothes. But she never bet herself. She connects with a rebellious classmate, Josh Ellison, after he observes Michal taking revenge on a client who failed to pay up, and he begins encouraging her to take more risks. When a family friend dies, leaving behind many debts, Michal and Josh enact their own wealth redistribution system to help the family, charitable organizations and themselves. As they become bolder in their law-breaking, Michal finds herself trapped. Ayarbe's laudable interest in exploring issues of social justice in her novel is compromised by didactic dialogue, forced romance and a dull narrative. Approaching the hot-button topic of immigration through generic soundbites, for instance, doesn't add any depth or insight to the discussion, especially when voiced by unlikable characters. Michal's friend Moch embodies gang-member stereotypes, while Michal is as uninteresting as she imagines herself to be, never standing out even in her own narration. Ayarbe's attempts at chemistry between Josh and Michal never come to fruition, creating awkward gaps where emotional connections should occur. A bad bet all around. (Fiction. 14 & up)School Library Journal
Gr 9 Up—Michal Garcia is a bookie who just wants to get through her senior year and out of Carson City, NV. Her parents are dead, her grandmother spends more time on causes than on family, and her only friend has joined a gang. But when a new rich kid takes an interest in her, she realizes that she can no longer be a spectator in her own life. Mike makes a bet for herself-and wins. Soon she is placing more bets for more money, and she and Josh start stealing from the houses of the rich to give to the poor. The excitement mounts quickly: gang and racial violence escalate, Josh and Mike find bigger and more dangerous targets, and the stakes ramp ever higher. High on the thrill of big money, Mike quickly finds herself in over her head and her life on the line. Throughout, issues of immigration, racism, classism, and violence are explored. Mike's six-word "memoirs" for her creative writing class and passages from Dostoyevsky's The Gambler are woven throughout. Teens will be drawn in by the action, but the larger issues will linger after the last page is read.—Jennifer Rothschild, Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Oxon Hill, MD