Useful Fools
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5.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In this gripping and poignant coming-of-age novel, two teenagers discover the power of love and resilience in the face of adversity.
“The Romeo and Juliet love story will grab some readers; others will be drawn to the haunting, intense issues of politics and justice and the character of a loving teen so desperate that he joins murderous rebels.”—Booklist, starred review
Alonso, a dirt-poor teenager living in Peru, helps out at the public health clinic his mother, Magdalena, opened so that he can see Rosa, the beautiful and wealthy daughter of the clinic’s doctor. Alonso and Rosa are both shattered when Magdalena is assassinated by the Shining Path, a revolutionary terrorist organization.
Left with no hope, Alonso is recruited into the same group that killed his mother. Rose fights to break free of her own safe and wealthy life, journeying into Alonso’s dangerous new world to somehow help what is left of his family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Told from the perspectives of Rosa, a physician's privileged daughter, and Alonso, a poor cholo (Indian) teenager, this first novel takes a harsh look at the cruel regime in late 20th-century Peru and the violent tactics of the Communist guerilla insurgency, the Shining Path. Rosa's father and Alonso's mother run a health clinic near Lima, which makes Dr. Pablo suspect in the eyes of the government and Magda a target for the Shining Path. "Alonso, if the bourgeoisie can cushion the People's misery... don't you think they will? Your mother played right into that. She became what we call a useful fool," says a party leader, explaining why the Shining Path blows up the clinic when Magda is inside. Magda's murder shatters the community, but before long graffiti everywhere defames Magda. As Alonso's father descends into heavy drinking, and as Rosa's father sees no way to reopen the clinic, Rosa and Alonso begin navigating separate and dangerous paths. Crushed, confused and regularly beaten by his heartbroken father, Alonso briefly joins the terrorists. Schmidt does a credible job of showing the seduction of terrorism in an impoverished society, and she broadens the audience by framing much of the action as a romance between Rosa and Alonso. Poetic language punctuates much of the violence: "If he opened his mouth, would words come out? Or just mist? Mist that dampened their hair and wet the dust. Everything sank like death into the ground." Ages 14-up.
