I am always on the hunt for YA about girls who are truly athletes. Girls who are jocks, not just girls who maybe do a sport for fun. Camila, Furia, is one of those girls. I loved this book. It's impossible not to root for he at every turn. The only complaint I would have is I wanted MORE!

Firstly a huge thanks to the publisher for this e-arc. So grateful!

I believe this book should be read by every girl and totally buying and gifting . This book is set in South America where our heroine has a passion for sports . Camilla cannot talk about her love sports because she is a seventeen year old in Argentina with a very strict mother . I was pumped that there was a romance element in it but it didn't overshadow the fierceness of Camilla. Loved this book and recommend it

A very engrossing look into the life of a fierce soccer player having to deal with the anti-feminism of both family and the Argentine society, and a romance.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review. Thank you, Algonquin Young Readers, for the chance to read it.

TW: domestic violence, abusive relationship and parents, murder, sexism


Camila Hassan lives in Rosario, Argentina, in the barrios and she lives a double life. At home she tries to be a perfect daughter, careful around her quick-tempered and abusive father, trying to live within her mother's expectations, in her rising-soccer-star brother's shadow.
But in the fields she's La Furia, a brilliant and talented futbolera and when her team qualifies for the South American tournament she's excited and ready to take this chance and see how far she can go. Her dream is to get a scholarship and study in a North America University. But her life is complicated by family relationships and when her childhood friend and first love, Diego, now a famous star playing for the Juventus, comes back, Camila tries not to get distracted by their feelings for each other.
Camila is then forced to face her secrets, her feelings and dreams, ready to fight to have a place in a world who doesn't want to make place for a girl like her.


Furia is a brilliant and intense #ownvoices contemporary, a coming-of-age story, told by a stubborn and fierce character, who is fighting to live and follow her dreams in a sexist and patriarcal society. Camila is a complex and captivating character. She doesn't want to follow her parents' expectations, she doesn't want to hide in her brother's shadow anymore, to hide and fear her father, to not fight back.
She's ambitious, smart and she won't let anyone stop her dreams, not even herself and her feelings. Her story with Diego is sweet and cute and I loved the trope childhood friends to lovers, but their relationship is complicated by Diego's job and home in Italy, a glamorous life that clashes with Camila's simple one and Camila's desires to be someone, to become a futbolera and get away from her house and life.

I really liked how Camila refuses to give up, how she keeps fighting, finding a way to play, to train, to partecipate to the tournament, not letting anything in her way, trusting herself, her passion and talent, her team.
She wants to have her own life, refusing to be shackled by other's dreams or expectations, by her abusive father, by her submissive and abused mother. She won't let anyone stop her and she's really amazing and strong. Her relationship with Roxana, her best friend, is truly intense and I love how they support, help and understand one other. I loved reading how she teaches to kids from the group home to keep them off the streets, helping and supporting them and her relationship with the fierce and stubborn Karen. Women supporting women is so beautiful and empowering. I really appreciated how it was underlined the education's importance.

The women's condition is addressed in Furia, by hinting at the pro-choice movement, at the missing women and girls and at movement "No una menos", above all when a girl they knew is killed. Camila lives in a deeply patriarchal and sexist society and she's hit and hurt by this ideology both outside and inside her home.
Always being underestimated by her father, Camila is conscious of the risks of being a woman in Argentina, risks addressed when she dresses, when she's out at night, when she's alone, listening to her family's worries and ideas.
The deeply patriarchal society is clear in their words, in what a "respectable" girl should do or be, in their victim-blaming:

"Kind of late for a respectable girl to be out and about, don't you think?"

"If she hadn't being hanging with the wrong crowd, she'd still be alive"

"When you aren't at home, we worry you'll be on the next poster. If you're not careful, it'll be your fault if you are."

(quotes from the earc, so they may be subject to changes)

Camila's brother Pablo, her mother, her father seemed to be surrendered to the world where they live, where girls are afraid to come home alone at night because they are scared to be attacked and killed, but Camila, her friends, they don't want to live like that and they fight to be safe, protesting, arguing, fighting back.

Camila is trapped, almost until the end, in a cycle of violence and bitterness with her family, a cycle made of wrong choices, unwanted and unexpected pregnancies, lost opportunities, family's expectations, betrayals, lies and cheatings.

Furia is an intense and brilliant coming-of-age story about a young woman fighting to have her own life, following her dreams and desires, a thrilling love story and set in a world where women want to be free and safe.

Author: Yamile Saied Mendez
Genre: YA Contemporary
Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ • ✨ / 5
Reviewed: Maya

This book is full of important issues, and it seemed to be marketed straight to me. An OwnVoices, soccer-loving, feminist novel, sign me up! So many people have loved this book, but even though the book was good, it just wasn’t for me. The writing was good, but didn’t have me flipping through the pages because I wanted to know more. The storyline was very real and important, however I found some aspects of the book only touched on topics that deserved to have more discussion and pages. Camilla, the only POV character, had a strong spirit and refused to stand down for the patriarchy. There was just something (it was probably me) that meant I didn’t fall in love with her. Argentine culture can be easily imagined and I really enjoyed this part of the book, as it opened up a new perspective for me. Loads of reviews I have read have talked about how emotional the book was, however for me, I did not find the book to be particularly moving at all. I have very mixed feelings on this book; the topics are so important and the way they were shown through soccer was really clever, but I struggled to fall in love with the storyline or the characters.

I cannot describe how much I LOVED this book!! Teenage Camila is hiding a secret - her talent for soccer - in patriarchal Argentina, where she is expected to be the perfect, studious daughter. But she dreams of playing professionally and has been hiding her activities on the soccer field from her family. Now, when her childhood sweetheart Diego comes home to visit from Italy, where he has become a world famous soccer star, she must contend with her reignited love for him at the same time that it may conflict with her soccer dreams.

How can I describe how wonderful this book is?? There is a magnificently strong sense of place - I felt like I could really picture the city of Rosario - and I'm glad this story is set amidst the background of the nationwide Ni Una Menos campaign to combat the high rates of violence against women. This book was equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking. There are some heavy issues dealt with directly on the page, including domestic violence. Soccer is a huge part of my life so I obviously loved that aspect of the book but I don't think it's necessary to be a soccer fan to be a fan of this book. You will absolutely fall in love with Camila's spirit and root for her throughout her story. I also need to say a big THANK YOU to the author for the epilogue, which I thought was perfect!

I know I'll be returning to this book and I think I've just found my newest go-to comfort read.

4 stars

I really enjoyed the sense of place, the cultural aspects, and especially the way Furia is characterized throughout this novel. It's impossible not to be on her team (so much so, apparently, that I really couldn't avoid that bad pun).

Camila is a strong character in both body and mind, and I love these aspects of her. Often, I find that in literature of all genres, when there is a woman character who has her stuff together, she is STILL depicted as smaller, more fragile, etc. in some way than all of the men around her, and I really loved the attention to Cami's muscular legs, and the various examples of powerful physicality that she demonstrates here. She IS physically smaller than the male characters, but she is never - not even in moments of extreme vulnerability - described as powerless in a way that feels cringey. I'm so tired of seeing that trope, and I really appreciate how much attention goes into fighting that in this work (and, let's be honest, her kicking butt in much more exciting ways than the dudes do, overall).

More than her physical strength, Cami/Furia possesses incredible emotional maturity, and I love the example she sets for readers and her own community. She makes choices that I often found surprising - in a good way. She doesn't fall into a binary of having to choose completely between different aspects of her life; she finds ways to choose herself in a really advanced manner that I think even most adult readers will admire. It's also powerful to see the way she models this behavior quietly for her friends, the young people in her life, and even her mother.

I did come into this with some reservations about how much I'd get into the soccer aspects of this novel, and that part was not totally for me. This noted, I really like how soccer - in various ways - becomes a testing ground for Cami/Furia's independence, strength, and ability to operate both individually and communally.

I can't wait to read more from this author.

📚Review: Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez

Thank you to @netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC!

Camila Hassan has dreams that no young woman should ever dream, especially in Rosario, Argentina where young girls who dream end up with their faces on posters with “Missing” plastered across the top.

Camila lives in the shadow of her brother, a rising soccer star that will “save” his family, she tiptoes around the wrath of her short-tempered father, and possibly worst of all — she feels abandoned by her mother who turns a blind eye to Papa’s abuse.

Why can’t she be a futbolera? Why does her mama stay with her papa? Why does her papa measure their worth by the team they play for when he won’t even let Camila take the field? Why does her first love Diego choose to come back now, as an international soccer star, and complicate things?

All this weighing on her, it’s no wonder she must keep so many secrets. The biggest? Alongside her team and her best friend Roxana, Camila hopes to make her dream of playing futbol in the USAa reality. If anyone can do it, it is Camila, la Furia.

The premise of Furia had me hooked right away. Camila is a strong, empowering Latin American woman that has the world stacked against her, but it doesn’t stop her from pushing the boundaries to make her dream a reality. With that being said, there were too many underdeveloped plot lines. I kept wanting to know more about the girls that kept going missing. I wanted more of the history of Rosario to better understand the discrimination the women were going through. I think the hype of Diego was overdone and he overshadowed Camila sometimes. Finally, I lost it a little in the middle where they were sorting out their love story and it took me a long time to get back into it.

So, I do think this book is incredibly important. I love that it is a book with sports where a female character is unstoppable. I think students of all ages will appreciate Camila’s spunk and feel connected to her struggles. Despite my critiques, I do believe I will buy it for my classroom and I will recommend it to students.

3.75 ⭐️s as a whole— 4⭐️s if I’m just considering how I feel about Camila alone.

I loved everything about this book! Yamile Saied Mendez was able to capture a snapshot of Camila's world so beautifully! "In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan leads a double life." She lives in the shadow of her domineering father and professional futbol player brother, but when she sneaks off on her own covering her tracks with compounding lies, she is a force to be reckoned with. She is La Furia, the dynamo futbol player on a scrappy young women's team who earn their way to the Sudamericano women's tournament, and, depending on how well she plays, giving Camila a chance to make her dreams come true as a pro in the United States.

I appreciated the descriptions of Camila's life in the barrio, of her team scrimmages, and of the complicated love interest in her life. I loved that she found her strength from within and when she played with joy, she was her best, most powerful self. Most of all, I appreciated the strength of the women in this book. It is Camila's story, but it is also a beautiful journey of the mother-daughter bond, enduring supportive female friendships, and the ability of women to fight for their dreams, rights, and freedoms within an often abusive, misogynistic, Latinix culture.

I highly recommend this book!

Advanced copy provided courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Triggers: emotional and physical abuse

I absolutely loved this book. It's emotional, feminist and a YA set in Argentina which I have never come across before. It is also about football, which appealed to my inner child who was obsessed with the sport so much. Set in Argentina, it has such powerful descriptions of the setting and the food. I was totally blown away by how good this is.

A standout for me is that Camila Hassan is such a likeable character. She is so determined, strong, but also kind, and is always fighting for what she wants. She plays football for a girls team, but always seem to be in the shadow of her brother who plays for the local team, and her childhood love Diego who has made it big and plays for Juventus in Italy - he is tipped to be the next star of the national team like Messi. Camila's father is also abusive towards his family, which broke my heart.

Camila is mature beyond her years, particularly when it comes to Diego. She makes such good decisions when it comes to her future and I love how powerful that makes her. Her compassionate side definitely shines through whilst she's teaching kids English, including a bright girl called Karen.

Overall I loved this book. It gave me such a roller coaster ride of emotions and I am so glad I got to read it early.

Ever since the cover reveal, I’ve been so excited for this book! The summary pulled me and I was definitely not disappointed. An ownvoices Argentinean experience, Furia navigates the desire to pursue your dream, even if it means sacrificing love and expectations to do so.

A futbolera at heart, Camila has been playing on a team in secret because she knows her parents would disapprove, despite the fact that her brother plays professionally. As La Furia, she is unstoppable on the field; her team qualifies for a major tournament, which is her chance to be scouted for a chance to play on a team in North America and go to college there. However, her secret is coming closer and closer to being revealed. To make matters worse, her first love, Diego, has come back into town. He’s the city’s golden boy, an up-and-coming star on a major European team. As they grow closer, Camila has to decide which is more important: love and money, or her dream.

I’ll start this review by saying that in no way am I well-versed in the world of soccer. I know a couple of names enough to recognize them when they were brought up here, but otherwise, I just took their word for it. This didn’t hamper my ability to read the book however! If anything, the author makes sure you know the importance of certain teams and games.

The writing was so great; you really feel like you’re in Camila’s head. The setting of Argentina, including the dangers and differences from the West, is also well-established without making it seem like it’s a novelty, which shows the importance of an ownvoices novel. The pacing was just right, and I was never bored while reading this book. In fact, I finished most of it in one sitting.

I really loved the romance between Camila and Diego! It’s a childhood friends to lovers romance that really takes the yearning to a new level. Diego was so caring and generous; the fame clearly brought out the best in him rather than the worst. He’s loved Camila for years and would do anything for her. However, while their scenes take up a lot of the book, their romance is not the central aspect of the story.

In fact, Diego is more of an obstacle to Camila’s story, particularly as her parents (mainly her father) think she’d be better off as Diego’s wife, taking advantage of his assured successful career and his money. Soccer is prevalent throughout this book, as Diego and Camila’s brother Pablo play. It’s a means of escaping their city, and Camila loves playing. The real heart of this book is her dreams of being a futbolera, and you definitely feel that throughout the book.

Anyways, this goes without saying but I loved the characters! Camila is determined and I loved following her on her journey. Diego was amazing; I love him so much honestly. Camila also has a great support system, even if they don’t agree with her decisions at first: her mother wants a better life for her, and her best friend, Roxana, helps her in any way she can. Their coach also pushes the girls on their team to do their best, even if so many people don’t care about girls playing soccer.

It was also so nice reading about the different ethnicities and cultures that Argentina has. Camila mentions having a Russian great-grandmother, a Palestinian grandfather, and an Andalusian grandmother, as well as a Black great-great-grandmother. Roxana is of Chinese heritage.

Furia was such an amazing read, one that I couldn’t put down. You’ll fall in love with Camila and everyone in her life, as well as her determination to be a futbolera like I did. I definitely recommend Furia if you enjoy soccer, the childhood-best-friends-to-lovers trope, or stories full of heart!

Furia is a must read for all, but especially for young girls who dream of something more. It is the story of Camilla, an aspiring fútbolista in Rosario, Argentina, who must overcome political, social, and familial obstacles to reach her goals. Méndez skillfully incorporates these obstacles without relying on cliches or tropes. She addresses the unstable political climate in Argentina - including femicide, gender stereotypes, and female empowerment- without digressing from the story. In other words, they are part of Camilla's life, but they do not define her.
And that is the brilliance of this YA novel. It sheds a light on the Latinx experience, educates readers, but does not lose focus of the narrative's heart.

As a Latina reader, this book filled me with a joy I wish I had known when I was in school. It incorporated many aspects of our culture within the details of the narrative, including music (Maluma makes a few appearances), Catholicism, and traditional gender roles within the family. I also appreciated that Spanish was not italicized; it was a simply a part of the story. There were aspects I could identify with, and others that I wanted to learn more about.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the many types of love found within this book. There is romantic love (Hello, Diego), a love of sport (the fútbol scenes are so vivid, I felt like I was there), and love between a mother and daughter. It is a wondrous showcase of the power love to propel dreams.

I highly recommend Furia to all readers.

Thank you to Algonquin Young Readers and Yamile Saied Méndez for an early review copy.

Hello Gemmies! I have an exciting book review to share with you today. Please note: I received a digital ARC of this book (via NetGalley) from its publisher in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Furia is a debut YA contemporary coming of age story by Yamile Saied Mendez. I was so excited to receive this one to review and man I was not disappointed, Furia absolutely blew me away. I cannot believe this is Yamile's first novel. Furia pulls you in from the very first page. This is very much a story about female empowerment and resilience in the face of insurmountable odds. Let's start with the story. The plot was unexpected, fresh, and new. Although this is a YA novel, there are some very serious themes throughout like machismo, misogyny, toppling patriarchal structures, child abuse, domestic abuse, and gender and class inequality that take this novel to the next level. I found myself fully immersed in this world. The world building is so fresh and authentic. Yamile's passion for her Argentinian culture was beautifully woven into every page. I found myself transported to Argentina sipping a mate while nibbling on an alfajor. The writing also flowed at a great pace all throughout this novel. I had to put the book down because I didn't want it to end! Otherwise I would have finished this gem in one sitting!

Furia is also an extremely well written character driven story with a diverse cast of characters that I found to be complex, dynamic, and relatable. I absolutely loved our main protagonist Camila Hassan aka la Furia. She is so fierce. Despite all the obstacles she faces, she remains true to herself. Camila is also a great role model for young girls. Too often in literature we see young women who need a man to save them or to help them achieve their goals. Not here, Camila is determined to see her dreams come to fruition and not even her love can distract her from doing it. Speaking of love, I LOVED the relationship between Camila and Diego. The chemistry between these two was amazing. Their relationship felt natural, it never came off as forced or rushed. Although there is romance in Furia it does not overpower the story. This is very much a feminist powerhouse of a book about breaking generational cycles of abuse that I recommend all girls and women read.

This gem published by Algonquin Young Readers is set to release on September 15, 2020 and is available for pre-order from all major booksellers. I give Furia 5 out of 5 gems. I cannot wait for this story to be out in the world for all to read and enjoy. Happy Reading!

I have so many thoughts on this powerful and moving #ownvoice ya.

This book is uber special to me because I come from a HUGE soccer family and I’m #Latinx. This book was basically written for me ❤️

I want to talk about the soccer side of this book before diving into the cultural aspects of it.

I want to talk about why the USWNT is so dominant. The US started supporting its women way before other countries did. I remember reading an article a few years back about a husband not letting his wife play in a regional soccer tournament. This really helps explain the battles Camila faced. Being a professional women’s soccer player is extremely rare, and even more so in other countries. Tbh women in the NWSL don’t even get paid enough (look up Sydney Leroux’s article with Forbes).

Her dad was sadly an accurate representation of a lot of Hispanic fathers. Machismo (chauvinism) is way too common in my culture. His thoughts and beliefs may seem over the top for you but it’s something we grew up being familiar with. The family dynamics was also spot on 😔

One my favorite things about this book was the blend of so many languages and cultures. It really captured how diverse people, cultures, and countries are.

Mendez nailed the soccer side of this book and that’s coming from someone who lives and breathes international soccer. The Juventus details were exceptional! 🤍🖤

She also gave us some age appropriate romance that I was really here for. It didn’t overshadow the message of this book and I love that. Camila harped about not needing a savior and being her own rescuer.


You simply cannot miss this coming of age book that is so moving and just makes you feel good.

I have to say that I stayed up all night so that I could finish FURIA, and I wasn't disappointed. I feel so honored to have been able to read an early copy of it. Coming from the angle of a White, gay male, this novel really opened my eyes to the life of Camilla in Argentina. Her fighting spirit rang throughout me the entire time. The writing style was perfect, and the cover pulls you right in. Thanks to this book, I will make more of an effort to read more books like FURIA.

Reading this story was really weird in a good way. I was reading a book written by an Argentinian author in English and it narrated things that even if they weren't that similar to my own experience, since I'm not from Rosario, were incredibly near to similar. Maybe I didn't recognize the street names, but I did recognize the mate with facturas. I might haven't found myself in the pasión futbolera for the barrio's team or the famous goalie, but I did see my friends and family there. Maybe my dream isn't being la Furia in professional fútbol, but I found myself in Camila and her passion for what she does, how hard she feels and fights.

I may have not found myself in Rosario, but I saw Camila in my friends and her mother in a couple of mothers and grandmas I know. I saw someone I don't see anymore in Marisa, and I saw a second grade girl I once met in a really poor school in Karen. I see Eda every time I turn on the TV. And that's why Furia is important.

We first get sold on fútbol, and yeah, it is about fútbol. We experience everything in this story through fútbol, from family dynamics through love to dreams and goals of our protagonist and everyone she knows. To be honest, I don't really care about fútbol. Like, at all. I don't get hurt by the stereotypical fútbol-loving Argentine trope, but I couldn't care less for having the shirt or the autograph of a certain player. You're lucky if I ever remember to watch Argentina matches when the World Cup's on.

But loving this book this much shows how important it is, even if you don't like fútbol.

Furia is about fútbol, yeah. It is also about love, friendship, identity, our roots and gender violence, street violence, child poverty and the reality of those who grow up way too soon not really having a childhood, yet not being really adults. The topics didn't always convince me while I was reading, but at the same time I felt it was way too mine, too similar to what we all live every single day, mostly in most remote and poor barrios.

The author narrates this story through the sharp and crude eyes of a teenager that already went through too much. Many of these experiences aren't mine, yet I felt them on my skin every single time. The scenes at the merendero, for example, broke my heart because I've seen them for myself. The scenes with her father, mostly those where she suddenly remembers she didn't lock the door that night and that she's only wearing a Juventus shirt and her underwear, gave me goosebumps.

It is sincerely one of those books that I'm really happy I got to read. First, because it's really weird reading myself in a book published in another language, in another country, marketed for a very different public: when she describes the mate's afteraste as green I wasn't really impressed, but at the same time my mother gave me a mate and after that I couldn't help but think yeah, that aftertaste tastes like the concept of green, and not only because of its color. I might sound as if I'm bullshitting this, but I didn't feel this kind of feeling of proximity with any US published book ever before.

Second and mostly because I liked how she treated the book's topics. I think the feminist scenes, thoughts and its topics could have been introduced less abrupt way, but even then I'm thankful our green handkerchiefs can be now read in other countries. How many times do we read here's a thread on what's happening in x country on Twitter? How many times do we get updates on marchs, countermarchs, social movements and activism from the US, while we don't even know what's happening on the other side of the General Paz?

Talking about not only the machismo so, so rooted in our society but also about the gender and family violence, the grooming, children poverty, the hunger at the barrios and the rupture of family cycles is something we need to see, read, consume for us to experience them, if not on our own then through someone else's voice.

Furia is a beautiful and needed book, and its tiny details I have to criticize exist only because I searched for, as we say in Argentina, the cat's fifth paw. It's in its essence a feminist and liberating book that's about fighting for your dreams and believing in yourself.

And we're all Eda. They keep blaming us for our mere existence and they keep on killing us. Let Eda be the last victim of patriarchal violence in both a fictional world and our reality. The Ni Una Menos movement is as present as ever ✊🏽🔥💜💚

More like 3.75/5

HEY HI IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR AN OWNVOICES REVIEW THIS IS IT, I WAS BORN IN ROSARIO, I LIVE IN ROSARIO WHEN THERE'S NOT A GLOBAL PANDEMIC GOING ON!!

Okay so, as someone who went back to Rosario as a uni student my experience in it and whit it is entirely different from Camila's. I've never really been to her barrio, though I've passed by, because it's so freaking far away from anything and everything. I do go to zona sur literally every single day since my uni is there (that's where El buen pastor is), and I know la costanera even though I go there way less often than I would like to. Central's stadium I've passed by but I'm not really interested in. Unlike Camila I couldn't despise fútbol more so the fact that I gave such a high rating to a book that centers around it speaks volumes about the quality of the author's writing.

But despite all of our differences, the book truly captured what it is to be rosarina. There's something I can't quite explain about the family dynamics, the atmosphere, the small day-to-day gestures that spoke to my personal experience. And I don't even like mate!! But the curandera, the noisy neighbors, the monoblocks, sitting by the river watching the sunset, taking public buses, the small barrio clubs, not having a phone when everyone else does, the way christianity is woven with charity work, the green handkerchiefs, buying facturas first thing in the morning. It's always the little things that make a work of fiction feel real, and this book hit the nail on the head.

As for the plot, I had to suspend my disbelief for a bit but I liked it overall. As I said, fútbol is not really my thing at all so I couldn't connect with Camila in that department, but I didn't find it boring at all. The matches kept me on the edge of my seat long enough to power through them and get to the parts I was more excited about. Camila and Diego's relationship felt so real, too, and it might be because it wasn't easy and it wasn't really a happy ending, either. There's some things that love just can't overcome and it's okay because it's not the end of the world to be 17 and single. I loved that Camila put herself first every step of the way.

What I would've liked is for the feminist movement to be a stronger plot point. I think Eda's march was supposed to feel like a turning point for Camila but it was rushed, and the author didn't get into how it feels to be in the middle of a wave of women crying and chanting because we don't want any of us to be the next reason to march. It's such a large part of my and my friends' life, and I don't think it got enought page-time in this book.

To round up, we need more books set in Rosario. I'm begging please.

Amazing!
What a powerful book for girls and women to read. A wonderful YA, coming of age, feminist book set in Argentina, all about a girl's dream of playing soccer (Argentina Futbol). But it's not only about soccer. It's about the darker parts of life in Argentina, a family that is scared of their father mixed in with a little bit of childhood romance. This book is not only empowering for #ownvoices females, but for ALL females with a dream.

Camila "La Furía" Hassan has been keeping a secret from her family. She has been playing on a local soccer team with other girls that have a passion for the game. Her parents have only let her older brother pursue his love of soccer because "girls don't play sports" after a certain age. But Furia is just that. She has a passion and we get to see it played out on the field. The images the author uses to describe her playing style just flows right off the page. I could see Camila on the pitch and being taken over by her love of the game. I was there and I saw the passion dripping from the pages. This wasn't just a game, this was a way of life for her and she was going to make it happen any way she could. But keeping it a secret from her family won't hold for long once her team qualifies for the big SudoAmerican tournament.

"We'd made the space. We'd filled in the cracks of the system and made room for ourselves where there was none. No one had given us anything. We had taken it. But no one wanted to hear the truth."

But Camila's love of the game is further complicated by a childhood friend that returns home to visit Argentina from Italy where he is playing professional futbol. Diego and Camila have grown up together along with her brother. But he wants more from her and she isn't sure if he is enough. She wants futbol AND Diego. Can they survive distance and a difference in opinion? Or will Camila continue to carve out her own path?

I loved the messages in this book and I loved how strong of a character Camila was. Her strength passed onto her brother, her mother, her teammates, and even to a child she ended up teaching. The way Argentinian life was portrayed was heartbreaking, but obviously real and something that I'm glad the author addressed. She didn't shy away from the hard subjects, but dealt with them carefully without going too deep into the matter. This was a girl's story. A girl's dream. A girl's fight to conquer what she had set out to do with so many hurdles in her way. I enjoyed each moment of it, even when life got hard.
This book has so much passion put into it and you can feel it. I hope many girls with dreams and with goals will get their hands on this book. It's needed in this day and age when much of what women here is 'you can't do that'. Yes, YOU CAN! And you will!
Highly recommend this powerful and stunning book by Yamile Saied Mendez

"I don't want you to save us, at least not in the way everyone else does. I want you to break the cycle, Camila."

Fierce!!!!!!!
That's the only way to describe this book and Camila's passion.

I do hope that young girls all over the globe will keep breaking the cycle of patriarchy and leading new paths for others to follow.

Read the rest of my review on the blog:
http://www.oliviasose.com/furia-by-yamile-saied-mendez-book-review/

Furia was a story that swept me away from the start with its resilient protagonist and message of female empowerment. It was great to read a about a girl’s passion for sports set in South America, as the cultural aspect really impacted my reading experience for the better.

~★~ What is this book about? ~★~

Camilla is a seventeen year old living in Rosario, Argentina. Over the years she has grown used to concealing her love for soccer, as her strict mother and abusive father would never approve of something like this from their daughter. Her brother being a rising-soccer star only fuel’s Camilla’s dream, and so she has made a routine of lying to her parents every time she goes to soccer practice. As her talent reaches great heights, Camilla believes she may be on the edge of a breakthrough to something huge.

~★~

Camilla was a truly brilliant protagonist. She was strong willed from the very start of this novel, and I couldn’t help rooting for her. It was amazing to follow her through every hardship and success as her future became ultimately bright.

The writing flowed at a great pace all the way through; I ended up finishing this book in one sitting because I simply couldn’t put it down. The author’s Argentinian culture was integrated into the narrative so well, I really did feel like I was in another continent while reading.

Best of all, I felt empowered by Camilla. She never gave up hope when things seemed dark, and always continued to push towards her dreams. It was wonderful to see the love and friendship between girls in this book; I had such a great time reading!

This is a story I cannot wait for others to get their hands on. Furia is magical in it’s own way, with a protagonist’s voice that is sure to stick with you for a long while. This was a complete gem of a book.