A review by jrosenstein
Efrain's Secret by Sofia Quintero

4.0

Excellent urban YA fiction that I'm looking forward to purchasing for my library. I think this offers a good opportunity to pry kids away from the street fiction they love. There's drugs and some violence and a hint of sex, and the gritty Bronx setting will appeal to kids from similar neighborhoods. That said, it's all about a boy who's so desperate to go to Harvard he starts selling drugs to get the money. The characters actually seem like real kids and while the end is a little moralistic, overall Quintero captures her milieu extremely well. Full disclosure; I actually met Sofia Quintero; she came to speak at my school as part of the Women's Career Week I organized.