It's 1984, and 15-year-old Beatriz Mendez knows there is a rule she cannot break: "blood in, blood out." Members of the Diablos, a Puerto Rican gang in her neighborhood of Newark, N.J., get jumped as initiation--and leaving the gang usually means being killed in the streets. Beatriz's older brother, Juan "Junito," is the leader of the Diablos; when he and Beatriz are attacked by the Haitian Macoutes, a rival gang, Junito is gunned down and Beatriz is beaten. Having watched her brother die, Beatriz's priorities shift drastically. Her dream of becoming a dancer like Debbie Allen is put on hold as the pressure to return to the gang builds--"time to start thinking 'bout getting back in the game, princesa"--forcing her to think about the street violence in which she has taken part.
With Junito gone, the Diablos' new leader, DQ, has big plans to up the ante in the fight against the Macoutes. As Beatriz tries to break ties with the Diablos, and begins a friendship with a new boy at school named Nasser, someone starts leaving her photographs with mysterious messages written in Creole. Slowly losing the trust of the Diablos, with the danger of being jumped by the Macoutes at every turn, Beatriz is torn between finding a form of safety in her old life and escaping violence by embracing her love of dance.
Tami Charles's beautifully written follow-up to Like Vanessa creates a believable character in Beatriz, one with an intensity of spirit likely to draw in fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Tiffany D. Jackson. With its realistic portrayal of life in Newark in the 1980s, Charles's author's note reveals the parts of her own life that inspired Beatriz's story. --Clarissa Hadge, bookstore manager, Trident Booksellers & Cafe, Boston, Mass.