Israel Moya's meditative, cathartic YA debut, Monarchs in the Wind, is a thoughtful take on the get-out-of-town trope featuring a Mexican American teenager who is desperate to not be defined by others.
It's 1994, and 17-year-old Cal Garcia, who is about to graduate from high school, witnesses the valedictorian fall from a bridge to her death. Fear has "ruled" Cal, the child of Mexican immigrants, since childhood. When Cal was seven, he snuck onto the roof to evade his drunken father and fell. "Pa found me with a jagged plank buried in my face." Cal left the hospital with a facial scar, and his father left town out of guilt. Since then, Cal has had his own scrapes with authority, and the valedictorian's gruesome death rocks him. The teen has few options for a future in tiny La Sombra, Calif., so he buys a used 1968 Mustang to enact his escape. But at every turn, something or someone seems to be trying to trap Cal: cholos fresh from prison who take a shine to the Mustang; a mysterious bruja; even his boss at the local supermarket, who has his own plans for Cal. And is it truly possible to outrun his fear in a "rotting and falling apart" vintage car?
Moya's text, inspired by his own youth, is elaborate and sometimes plodding but packs an emotional wallop. His novel, featuring hints of magical realism, remains solidly grounded; patient readers will be treated to a satisfying transformation in which Cal decisively shifts out of neutral and into drive. Moya reaches for something beyond the typical coming-of-age narrative and mostly succeeds with style and immense heart. --Luis Rendon