UNTRACEABLE

In this YA companion to middle-grade thriller Undercover Latina (2022), a Los Angeles teen’s family tries to escape her mother’s dangerous ex.

Fifteen-year-old Amani Kendall goes from practicing roller skating for an upcoming birthday party one day to starting over in a different school with a cover story and a fake name the next. Amani never fit in at elite, STEM-focused Penfield Academy as a “plus-size Black girl who wore African braids…because her mother wouldn’t let her flat-iron her hair.” But after Amani encounters a creepy man in her backyard and makes a police report (to her mother’s great displeasure), everything changes. Her mom picks her up early from school, informing her that their house was burned down, possibly by a stalker ex-boyfriend. Amani’s dad, a climate-change researcher, has been away working in the field for months. Amani and her mom take shelter with Sister Niema, who ran the Afrocentric weekend school for girls Amani once attended. Now going by Imani Kennedy, she starts over—with some negative preconceptions about her new classmates—at a public school that’s dramatically different from her old one. But she can’t help feeling like her mom is hiding something. This body-positive story has an exciting premise and addresses many relevant social issues. Unfortunately, the slow pace makes it difficult to sustain readers’ interest, and the book juggles a number of plotlines that don’t deliver on their promise.

Underwhelming.