Borderless

In this heart-wrenching tale by De Leon (Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From), gang violence forces a teen from her neighborhood in Guatemala. Sixteen-year-old Maya’s love of trashion—incorporating repurposed and recycled materials into clothing—earns her a scholarship to Salomé Fashion Institute, an elite local academy. After showcasing her talents at school, she even makes a list of the year’s top 10 designers, granting her entrance to design for Salomé’s annual spring fashion show. But when her mother reveals her plan to move them from Guatemala City, and away from increasing gang violence, to San Marcos, Maya fears giving up everything she’s worked so hard to achieve. The move will require her to withdraw from the fashion show, preventing her from obtaining the winner’s prize money and opportunity to sell her designs to a boutique, and her budding romance with the cousin of a gang member is also on the line. Things get more complicated when Maya witnesses a murder, prompting Maya and her mom to flee to the U.S. Characters navigating conflicting loyalties imbue the narrative with an intense, edge-of-the-seat tone, but De Leon’s strength lies in the novel’s intimate and immediate prose, which sheds light on harsh realities surrounding structural financial precarity and forced migration. Ages 14–up. Agent: Faye Bender, Book Group. (Apr.)