Meg Medina

It's the summer of 1977 in New York: the Ramones play CBGB's, people dance to disco all night, an oppressive heatwave settles over the city, the Son of Sam serial killer is at large, and buildings keep burning. Nora is a high school senior, about to graduate into this mess, and, she hopes, out of her family apartment, where she lives with her mother (who refuses to face reality) and younger brother Hector (who is out of control and abusive). Nora knows that Hector starts fires, and that he deals drugs, but her mother refuses to face facts, and their father has started over with a new wife and son, calling only on holidays. Nora has her lifelong best friend Kathleen MacInerny, whose father is a firefighter, but she doesn't tell Kathleen what it's really like at home, and she keeps her distance from handsome new coworker Pablo, too, fearing he won't understand and will judge her. (Pablo's family is from Colombia; Nora's is from Cuba.) Finally, a night of blackout, looting, and even more fires convinces Nora she has to take action; her neighbor, a Black woman called Stiller, encourages her.

Nora feels trapped in large and small ways, but in the end she gets a new beginning, thanks in part to help from teachers, neighbors, her boss, and Kathleen's family.

Quotes

It's no use talking to her about real life, though. She just doesn't participate in it. (31)

Safety precaution, huh? Interesting. Then why is it that having the cops everywhere makes me feel so scared? (122)

And then I wonder: Does the shooter have a mother, too? Does she know he's a monster? Is she afraid to say so and turn him in? (178)

I wonder - if a liar like me can be a true friend? (211)

"But you can also take a stand, even when you're scared. If you think you're powerless, you are." (Stiller to Nora, 230)

How do you rebuild people? How do you help them trust one another again? It seems so much harder than fixing buildings. (263)

What hotline is there for someone like me? How do I turn in my own flesh and blood when it means that everything will be blown apart and I'll lose whatever family I have left? (267)

Maybe the things that scare us seem more powerful than they truly are when we keep them secret. (287)

Until right now, I never considered that maybe Mima couldn't talk about the sad things in her life any more than I could talk about the sad things in mine. (295)… (més)