Price, Charlie. Desert Angel.

Price, Charlie.   Desert Angel.  Farrar Strauss see Macmillan Children's Pub Group,  2011.  236p.  $16.99   ISBN 978-0-374-31775-1     jr/sr E-BN  Realistic Fiction 

 Angel knows that she cannot stop running, because if she does, Scotty will catch up to her and try to  kill her. She believes she is at the end of her rope, when she gets help from the most unlikely place and unexpected group of people.  Angel lived with her mom, who was one of those women who believed she was no one unless she was with a man. Unfortunately the men she was attracted to were always men who abused her. Scotty was the worst of them. The fights were terrible and Angel sometimes had to go and sleep outside under the stars to get some rest. Now things have gotten out of control and Angel’s mom is dead. She found the grave. That frightens her because she knows Scotty will not let her live to tell anyone about it. That is when she runs for her life, with Scotty just one step behind her.
     Just when Angel feels like giving up and thinks about ending it herself, she encounters a group of people who are willing to risk their lives for her. This is new to Angel, who has no one; and even when she had her mom, Angel never came first in her mother’s life.
     This exciting, sit-on-the-edge-of your-seat novel will keep you reading until the very end. You can feel the pain this young teenager goes through and the loneliness she feels at losing her mother in the violent way she did.  The villain is so evil that the anxiety you feel waiting to see what happens just blows your mind.  This is an excellent novel about domestic abuse, rape, illegal immigrants and teens.                 

Subjects: Survival - Violence - Domestic Abuse - Mexican Americans -- Fiction

Magna Diaz