"Nothing ends," she says. "There is only transformation, ugly as it may be."

This was such a fascinating read - a peak into the 70's during one hot summer with a major power outage and a serial killer on the loose. Nora's world is turned upside down as a young teenager with a job and a troubled brother. She's just trying to date and have fun and enjoy her senior year in high school. But a serial killer is on the loose - gunning down couples in their cars. It's hard to date, hard to trust strangers, hard to go out without being afraid and wondering if you're next.

I enjoyed this one and all the twists of Nora's life. The kid has a rough one and the dynamics of her family and her juggling her future were well done. I'v read about Son of Sam killings but never thought of the affect it would have as a young teen dating, finishing high school and dealing with the uncertainly and fear of it. It was an undercurrent through the whole story, that fear, and I enjoyed learning more about that times in the 70's. ( )

Part romance, part family drama, part snapshot of NYC in the summer of 1977.

Nora is about to turn 18 and is trying to find her place in the world where she's scared of things beyond her control like a killer on the loose in NYC but also scared of things close to home like her brother who is hanging with the wrong crowd and is becoming a physical threat to her and her mother.

This is a YA that I wouldn't have picked up if it didn't come in a Book Riot box but I'm really glad I read it.


( )

Well written with a fascinating historical backdrop. ( )

It's the summer of 1977 in New York: the Ramones play CBGB's, people dance to disco all night, an oppressive heatwave settles over the city, the Son of Sam serial killer is at large, and buildings keep burning. Nora is a high school senior, about to graduate into this mess, and, she hopes, out of her family apartment, where she lives with her mother (who refuses to face reality) and younger brother Hector (who is out of control and abusive). Nora knows that Hector starts fires, and that he deals drugs, but her mother refuses to face facts, and their father has started over with a new wife and son, calling only on holidays. Nora has her lifelong best friend Kathleen MacInerny, whose father is a firefighter, but she doesn't tell Kathleen what it's really like at home, and she keeps her distance from handsome new coworker Pablo, too, fearing he won't understand and will judge her. (Pablo's family is from Colombia; Nora's is from Cuba.) Finally, a night of blackout, looting, and even more fires convinces Nora she has to take action; her neighbor, a Black woman called Stiller, encourages her.

Nora feels trapped in large and small ways, but in the end she gets a new beginning, thanks in part to help from teachers, neighbors, her boss, and Kathleen's family.

Quotes

It's no use talking to her about real life, though. She just doesn't participate in it. (31)

Safety precaution, huh? Interesting. Then why is it that having the cops everywhere makes me feel so scared? (122)

And then I wonder: Does the shooter have a mother, too? Does she know he's a monster? Is she afraid to say so and turn him in? (178)

I wonder - if a liar like me can be a true friend? (211)

"But you can also take a stand, even when you're scared. If you think you're powerless, you are." (Stiller to Nora, 230)

How do you rebuild people? How do you help them trust one another again? It seems so much harder than fixing buildings. (263)

What hotline is there for someone like me? How do I turn in my own flesh and blood when it means that everything will be blown apart and I'll lose whatever family I have left? (267)

Maybe the things that scare us seem more powerful than they truly are when we keep them secret. (287)

Until right now, I never considered that maybe Mima couldn't talk about the sad things in her life any more than I could talk about the sad things in mine. (295) ( )

This one was intriguing and I enjoyed reading it, but ultimately found it to be anticlimactic. I enjoyed the characters - Medina did a great job of getting you invested. And setting it during the Summer of Sam was a nice plot point. But ultimately, I was let down with all the build up. ( )