Sneak Peek Saturday: What Can't Wait

What Can't Wait

By: Ashley Hope Perez

Pub date: March 1st, 2011

Seventeen-year-old Marisa Moreno has smarts and plenty of promise, but she’s marooned in a broken-down Houston neighborhood—and in a Mexican immigrant family where making ends meet matters more than making it to college. At school, it's another story. Marisa's calc teacher expects her to ace the AP test and to get into an engineering program in Austin—a city that seems unimaginably far away.

When her home life becomes unbearable, Marisa seeks comfort elsewhere—and suddenly neither her best friend nor boyfriend can get through to her. Caught between the expectations of two different worlds and carrying a dark secret, Marisa will finally have to decide what can't wait.
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Chapter One

You’d think that by now I’d know how to get out of the house.

Easy, right? Scrape together an outfit, make Papi and Gustavo some breakfast, grab my books, walk out the door. Finding two people camped out in the living room shouldn’t change things much.
The snoring lump on the couch is my sister Cecilia, and the niña curled up on the couch cushions by the wall is my five-year-old niece, Anita. They show up like this whenever Cecilia has a big throw-down fight with her husband, Jose. He’s definitely the bigger jerk, but I don’t approve of all the screaming and door slamming that she does in front of Anita. Or of how Cecilia drags her out of their apartment in the middle of the night, trash-talking Jose the whole time.

Cecilia is the last person that I want to deal with right now, so there are some simple rules I should follow. Don’t close the bathroom door because it squeaks too loud. Wait until Cecilia is in the middle of a good long snore before slipping past. Avoid saying anything that sounds even remotely like “Jose” (that always stirs up the demon in her). And definitely do not stand around watching Anita sleep when I should be walking to school...
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This books sound very moving and powerful. To read the remainder of chapter one you can do so here. For more on Ashley Hope Perez and her work you can visit her official website and or blog.

Have a great weekend you guys! :)