Overview
The room smells of sweat, smoke, beer, and longing.The music pulses, the lights flash, and Kata and Ana dance. For a moment the raucous crowd is tamed, and together the two girls soar above their lives. but then the deafening applause sends the dancers crashing down to earth, back to the gang wars, the gunfire, and the only way of life they know.
In a neighborhood consumed by violence, every day may be a gang member's last. And sometimes the only life you can hope to save is your own.
The death of her best friend Ana in a drive-by shooting causes fifteen-year-old Kata to question her position in the Los Angeles gang life.
Synopsis
The room smells of sweat, smoke, beer, and longing.
The music pulses, the lights flash, and Kata and Ana dance. For a moment the raucous crowd is tamed, and together the two girls soar above their lives. but then the deafening applause sends the dancers crashing down to earth, back to the gang wars, the gunfire, and the only way of life they know.
In a neighborhood consumed by violence, every day may be a gang member's last. And sometimes the only life you can hope to save is your own.
VOYA
Kata and Ana, Ana and Kata-amigas and gang members-are inseparable until a bullet from a drive-by shooting takes Ana out of gang life forever. Consumed with grief and hate, Kata searches for something to destroy, perhaps even herself. Ultimately, Kata realizes that another death cannot bring Ana back and that her only salvation lies in quitting the life. Party Girl tries to crowd too much into its brief pages; Kata's promiscuous alcoholic mother, the gang members and their problems, the conflict over leaving the gang, Ana's pregnancy, and Kata's attempts to save Ana's little sister from the life are just a few of the plot threads that never really mesh into a cohesive fabric.
The novel is really a series of set pieces, including vignettes of a drive-by shooting; hanging with the homies sharing tequila, forties, and weed; and a young girl's funeral. Better editing might have helped create a more cohesive plot and stronger character development. Pocho, the father of Ana's child; Kata's foster brother, Kikicho, crippled in a drive-by and ready to quit the gang; and Ana and Kata themselves, never really become fully alive to the reader. The blend of mysticism and gangbanger hip is also confusing. Even the jacket art, which reproduces an especially sentimental illustration from a prayer card for the soul in purgatory, is likely to put off browsers. Offer your leaders Léon Bing's Do or Die (HarperPerennial, 1992) for a real-life examination of the LA gang scene.
VOYA Codes: 2Q 2P J S (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q, For the YA reader with a special interest in the subject, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9 and Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).
Editorials
VOYA -
Kata and Ana, Ana and Kata-amigas and gang members-are inseparable until a bullet from a drive-by shooting takes Ana out of gang life forever. Consumed with grief and hate, Kata searches for something to destroy, perhaps even herself. Ultimately, Kata realizes that another death cannot bring Ana back and that her only salvation lies in quitting the life. Party Girl tries to crowd too much into its brief pages; Kata's promiscuous alcoholic mother, the gang members and their problems, the conflict over leaving the gang, Ana's pregnancy, and Kata's attempts to save Ana's little sister from the life are just a few of the plot threads that never really mesh into a cohesive fabric.The novel is really a series of set pieces, including vignettes of a drive-by shooting; hanging with the homies sharing tequila, forties, and weed; and a young girl's funeral. Better editing might have helped create a more cohesive plot and stronger character development. Pocho, the father of Ana's child; Kata's foster brother, Kikicho, crippled in a drive-by and ready to quit the gang; and Ana and Kata themselves, never really become fully alive to the reader. The blend of mysticism and gangbanger hip is also confusing. Even the jacket art, which reproduces an especially sentimental illustration from a prayer card for the soul in purgatory, is likely to put off browsers. Offer your leaders Léon Bing's Do or Die (HarperPerennial, 1992) for a real-life examination of the LA gang scene.
VOYA Codes: 2Q 2P J S (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q, For the YA reader with a special interest in the subject, Junior High-defined as grades 7 to 9 and Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).
School Library Journal
Gr 7 Up-Kata and Ana have been inseparable since fourth grade. Kata helped Ana learn English when her family came to L.A. from Mexico, then Ana helped Kata keep up with her schoolwork whenever she had to take care of her mother. The girls, now 14, dreamed together, danced together, and joined a gang together. They are together the night Ana, who confides to Kata that she is pregnant, is shot and killed by a member of a rival gang. Kata narrates the progression of her grief: her anger, desire for revenge, and her guilt over luring Ana into "the life." Kata relates the events that eventually give her the courage to rise above her difficult circumstances and strive for a positive future. Ewing writes convincingly of Kata's gritty life in the barrio with her alcoholic mother, her desperately hopeless homeys, and the release and joy she finds in dancing competitions. Kata is one tough cookie. She needs that toughness to survive. But she finds in herself the additional capacity to care for others, whether it's her dissipated mother, the gang member who tries to hide the pain of his mother's desertion, or the boy who seemed to have won Ana's love. In just over 100 pages, Ewing makes readers care for Kata and wish her well.-Miriam Lang Budin, Mt. Kisco Public Library, NYMaeve Visser Knoth
When Kata's best friend and fellow gang member Ana is killed in a drive-by shooting, Kata looks first for revenge and finally for a way to make sense of the loss. Although she and her friends have been to many funerals, and expect that dying young is the price they will pay for living on the edge, Kata cannot imagine surviving without Ana. Her mother is an alcoholic who has a string of men but no energy to raise a daughter, and her fellow gang members are as quick to cut one another as they are to argue about respect or sleep with one another's lovers or chase down and kill a rival gang member. As the short novel unfolds, Kata tracks down the boy she is sure killed Ana, only to find out that her life need not be defined by gang boundaries and that her assumptions about who the enemy really is are not all correct. Like the characters themselves, the novel is a mix of sophistication and innocence. The grim realities, while not romanticized, are tempered by a gently hopeful ending. Ewing's novel does not make for light reading, but she creates a portrait of a girl and a society that gives some substance to the brief reports of gang shootings on the evening news.--Horn Book