FURIA

An Argentine girl’s journey to fulfill her ambitions against all odds.

Seventeen-year-old Camila “la Furia” Hassan is a talented soccer player from a traditional working-class family in Rosario, Argentina, who aspires to be a professional futbolera. Her life as a player is a secret she keeps from her parents, especially from her abusive father, but her support system includes her brother, Pablo, a professional soccer player himself, and her best friend and teammate, Roxana. After her team wins the local league and qualifies for a South American tournament, Camila finally has a chance to show her talent to scouts and hopefully fulfill her dream to join a North American team. Camila needs parental permission to join the tournament, but coming clean is hard—and then things get worse when the boy she loves is back in town. Diego left to play for Juventus FC in Italy and has come to win her back, but Camila is torn between her two loves. In this stirring novel by Argentine American author Méndez, passion for sports and personal growth intersect in Camila’s powerful, feminist first-person narrative about her experiences as an ambitious athlete, a teenager deeply in love, the daughter of an abusive father at the point of taking charge of her own life, and a young woman finding her voice in a deeply sexist, patriarchal society. Camila’s Argentine family is multicultural with Black, Indigenous, European, and Palestinian ancestors. Roxana is Chinese Argentine.

A riveting coming-of-age story.