A Fighting Chance

A Fighting Chance

  • Author: Meléndez Salinas, Claudia
  • Publisher: Arte Público Press
  • ISBN: 9781558858183
  • eISBN Pdf: 9781518500688
  • Place of publication:  Houston , United States
  • Year of publication: 2015
  • Pages: 256

Seventeen-year-old Miguel Angel spends every minute after school at the Packing Shed, working out with the Alisal Boxing Club. He dreams of becoming a champion so he can get his mother and five siblings out of their cramped one-bedroom apartment in one of Salinas’ poorest barrios.
But suddenly his life gets more complicated. The city is threatening to take the Packing Shed away from Coach, and without a place to train he won’t be able to avoid the gangbangers in his neighborhood. His childhood friend, Beto, has succumbed to the wiles of easy money and expensive cars, and Miguel Angel wonders if he’ll be able to resist his friend. Meanwhile, beautiful blonde Britney from Pebble Beach has entered his life, and Miguel Angel has never felt this way before. She too feels an overwhelming attraction, and she’s willing to defy her hard-nosed father, who expects her to date someone from their social background of exclusive country clubs and Ivy League schools.
When Beto turns to him for help, Miguel Angel is torn between his commitment to friends and Coach’s warnings about gang life. With gang violence getting closer and closer, he and Britney are suddenly faced with the consequences of unprotected sex. Can their love for each other survive all of the problems swirling around them? In A Fighting Chance, journalist Claudia Meléndez Salinas has crafted a vivid novel for young adults that captures the challenges of contemporary urban life in one of the Latino community’s poorest barrios.

  • Cover
  • Title page
  • Copyright page
  • Chapter 1
  • Chapter 2
  • Chapter 3
  • Chapter 4
  • Chapter 5
  • Chapter 6
  • Chapter 7
  • Chapter 8
  • Chapter 9
  • Chapter 10
  • Chapter 11
  • Chapter 12
  • Chapter 13
  • Chapter 14
  • Chapter 15
  • Chapter 16
  • Chapter 17
  • Chapter 18
  • Chapter 19
  • Chapter 20
  • Chapter 21
  • Chapter 22
  • Chapter 23
  • Chapter 24
  • Chapter 25
  • Chapter 26
  • Chapter 27
  • Chapter 28
  • Chapter 29
  • Chapter 30
  • Chapter 31
  • Chapter 32
  • Chapter 33
  • Chapter 34
  • Chapter 35
  • Chapter 36
  • Chapter 37
  • Chapter 38
  • Chapter 39
  • Chapter 40
  • Chapter 41
  • Chapter 42
  • Chapter 43
  • Chapter 44
  • Chapter 45
  • Chapter 46
  • Acknowledgments

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