Stork, Francisco X. Disappeared.

Stork, Francisco X.  Disappeared. Scholastic/Arthur Levine     2017     326p.  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-545-94447-2    hs       Realistic Fiction          E-BN

Sara Zapata is an up-and-coming reporter in Ciudad Juarez invesigating the Desaparacidas, young women kidnapped and trafficked by the ruling drug cartel.  The story is personal, as her best friend Linda disappeared over four months ago.  When she receives an encrypted message threatening both her life and that of her family, she decides to intensify her digging to save Linda and uncover the truth. 

Her brother Emiliano is a high-school soccer star and the boyfriend of Perla Rubi, the wealthy daughter of one of the cartel’s lawyers who offers entrepreneurial Emiliano financial security, but with a hefty cost to his conscience. 

This fast-paced thriller takes place in one eventful week when Sara discovers the whereabouts of her friend Linda, and the identities of her captors, Emiliano’s new business associates.  This forces Sara and Emiliano to flee Mexico, pursued by the cartel.
 
This timely, beautifully written, harrowing story vividly depicts how Mexico’s poverty, corruption, and violence forces young people like Sara and Emiliano to risk illegal and unsafe border crossing in hopes for not only a better life, but life itself.  This is YA literature at its best.                                     

Summary: Siblings Sara and Emiliano Zapata must escape their home in Ciudad Juarez after they are targeted by the ruling drug cartel for Sara’s exposé about the cartel’s involvement in trafficking.          

Drug trafficking-Fiction, Mexico-Fiction             --Lisa Teixeira