I loved this book! What an excellent Reese YA book pick. Family drama, a sweet romance and a strong character.
I enjoyed learning about this characters experience growing up in Argentina as well as women in sports.

My goodness, I loved this book so much! Camila, is a 17-year-old girl living in Rosaria with her parents and her talented fútbol-playing brother, a rising star on the local team. However, she is living a double-life, on the one hand playing the role of the dutiful daughter and sister at home, and a fútbol star in her own right (aka La Furia) outside of the house. She keeps that life secret from her family, knowing they would either use her talent for monetary gains (her abusive father) or they would stop her from playing because it is not right for a girl to play soccer once they hit puberty (her mom and much of the town). Additionally, her childhood best friend and first love returns to town. Diego has now made it big in Italy and still loves her. She realizes she never stopped loving him, but she also knows her love and passion for the game and her dreams of playing for an International team cannot be stopped. This book covered the plight of women and girls in Argentina, as well as domestic abuse, the kidnapping of females, especially young girls, teen pregnancy, some of the complicated nuances of race in Argentina (she is on the darker spectrum in terms of skin color), and being able to have more than one dream and finding the strength to not give up on the ones that allow your heart to sing. I loved Furia so much and really appreciated this #ownvoices novel. I did listen to this novel and loved hearing the gentle accent of the narrator, as well as the correct pronunciation of the names and occasional Spanish words. For me, personally, I felt that it added to the #ownvoices feel of the story, but I know I would have enjoyed this story regardless. Some tears were definitely shed for this book, but it was not all sad, and the ending was both inspiring and uplifting. I highly recommend this story!

Special thanks to the author and publisher, and also to Netgalley for this advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

No one is bringing down Furia! A talented young woman who vowed to prove herself to the world and did exactly that despite all the challenges and discrimination she encountered. She may be young, but she is full of compassion, courage, and determination. I find her very relatable because not only is she pursuing a sport that is male dominated but also not having the support from the people you expect will be there for you is difficult. Unfortunately, there are still places that focus on being prejudice rather than see the person as a human and equally talented and intelligent. I love that the author tackles different family structures and dynamics and gender equality. There is also romance in this book, which is so cute and inspiring. But I am drawn how empowered our young woman lead, and I highly recommend this book if you are into sports-themed (futbol), cute romance, charming characters, and inspirational read.⁣

I loved Furia so much! This was one of my favorite books of the year so far. I love a good YA and an #OwnVoices novel, even better! Camila/Furia was such a strong and independent female lead. She has one dream, to make it out of Argentina and reach the US to play soccer professionally. With an overbearing father, a dangerous town, and numerous setbacks, Camila does everything it takes to make her dreams happen.

I did a combo of audio and ebook for Furia. I did enjoy the audibook narrator however I think I liked reading this story even more. I usually listen to audibooks at a faster speed than 1.0 and I found myself wanting to read the words and not rush through them. Overall, such a great read and listen!

I've seen this book going around on my social media and had to get my hands on it. I've never read a book or seen a movie where the protagonist was from Argentina. This was something that excited me to learn about. I'm not a sports fan so it was also interesting to learn about soccer and those who play it. It was a great story, although the ending felt rushed. Looking forward to reading more from this author.
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for providing the audiobook.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Furia brought me back to my soccer days. Oh man, my ninja self scoring left and right on the field. Was I a rising star? Psh - no. Was I good enough? Probably in my mind. Did I enjoy it? For a while but then I definitely started to hate the sport. I don't even watch soccer on TV anymore.

Back to the book, now Camila is good - like really good - at soccer. She was unapologetically herself in every way, shape, and form. Even if she had two personalities, she was amazing in my eyes and definitely someone to look out for. Unfortunately for her, she has to hide this secret bad ass side of herself because her family doesn't seem it to be valuable to or for her.

It's a shame when someone makes a decision for you and that's that. Which is why I loved that she never gave it up and stuck with it. Camila worked hard every day and put over one hundred percent into it as well. She was very dedicated and it showed. It was mesmerizing to read/listen to because one should never want to squash a kids dreams.

In the end, I adored this book. I loved getting to see what her family life was like and just for her to grow throughout the book as well. Definitely recommend this one!

4.5 stars

CW: [On-page domestic violence and emotional abuse. Discussion of murder and misogyny in society (hide spoiler)]

I’m crying so hard right now. This book isn’t perfect and the end needed more time to breathe (too much happened in a rush), but I have ALL THE FEELS. Gah. I am incoherent.

Going into Furia I had high expectations because of all of the good reviews it was getting. I was actually let down immensely. I actually really enjoyed the setting of Argentina, I don’t think I have read a book set there so that was refreshing for me.

Now for Camila as a person, she got on my nerves a lot. She has the “not like other girls” syndrome. Her feelings for Diego were very wishy washy to me, one day she would be in love with him and then the next she would tell him to leave her alone and then she would go back and forth and her that got so old. Because of that I felt like the romance didn’t add much and Camila liked the concept of Diego rather than actually have feelings for him. She also felt like she had to hide this romance from her best friend and claiming that she wouldn't understand her so that was really odd to me and bugged me a LOT.

For all of the hyped up talk claiming that this book was extremely feminist-yes, it did have it’s points but for the most part I didn’t actually see much of that. Camila doesn’t stand up for herself, lies A LOT to her family and friends, and she doesn’t tell people what is on her mind or how she’s feeling. It drove me insane that she just lied to everyone, including her best friend. I felt that she was a little petty too. I expected a much stronger character with Camila. I did like some of the topics that were covered but I felt they were breezed through.. I’m happy with the ending, I actually liked the last maybe 20% of the book but as for the rest of it, nothing really happens and was quite a drag to read. The narrator did do a great job though so I did enjoy that.