City Girls [Hardcover]

Readers of Lucky Broken Girl, Hurricane Child, and The House on Mango Street, will love this debut middle grade novel about finding sanctuary with friends who understand the enormous changes life can throw at you when you're 11.

An NYPL Best Book for Kids 2024

What Elisa, Lucia, and Alice see–and judge–of each other from the outside is drastically different from how each girl feels inside. They attend the same classes in the same New York City middle school, but no one knows that Elisa is trying to navigate the bewildering asylum process having just arrived from El Salvador; or that Lucia, who also speaks Spanish and brims with self-confidence, is caught in the middle of her parents’ heartbreaking divorce; or that Alice, who appears to be a rebel in combat boots, carries the burden of her mother’s progressing cancer.

Narrated by each girl in alternating chapters, City Girls captures the vulnerability of being a middle schooler and the relief and joy of finding friendship where you least expect it. A beautiful story that reaches deep into the lives of girls coming of age today as they confront loss and fear and sorrow while still trying to be young and free. How lucky we all are that Loretta Lopez has chosen to share her psychological understanding through such evocative fiction. She knows how to heal with words, and offers hope and love and kindness that wraps around our corazones.
—Ruth Behar, author of Lucky Broken Girl and Letters from Cuba

“A marvelous read, wonderfully intertwined with tragedy and hope. Loretta Lopez has written a compelling and honest account of what many young people go through and the friendships that get them through those trying times.” — ErnestolÓy