NO GOING BACK

Antonio Echeverría Sullivan is just out of juvie, and he really does want to follow all the rules—but will his past let him?

Antonio wants to tell you his story, and he hopes you’ll believe him. He’s a white and Uruguayan teen boy who’s spent the last year and a half at the Zephyr Woods Youth Detention Center in Washington state’s Puget Sound area, taking the fall for a crime he wasn’t primarily responsible for. The conditions of his early release are clear, among them checking in with his parole officer, avoiding all contact with his father, staying sober, attending high school, and following a curfew. Desperate to make amends with his mother and his best friend, Maya, Antonio immediately sets off on a 72-hour journey, trying to outrun his past—and breaking all the rules, which might land him back at the detention center and permanently ruin all the relationships he’s trying to save. This is a taut coming-of-age story told in a combination of prose, with chapter headers that mark the day and time, and poems that flash back to earlier events. Antonio’s journey of self-realization features powerful inner dialogue that allows readers to understand the impulses that lead to his poor choices, and the novel brutally reflects the consequences and trials of addiction, chronic illness, and domestic violence on a family.

The excellent pacing and heart-wrenching exploration of redemption will sweep readers up.