by Yxta Maya Murray
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Product Description
A plunge into Los Angeles gang life, Locas is the story of two girls under the pressure of urban warfare. "Murray perfectly captures the patois and fury of the Mexican women of the East L.A. neighborhood Echo Park." -- Publishers Weekly
Amazon.com Review
This powerful, deft, and fast-moving first novel reads like a direct line to the hearts and lives of two young girls of Mexican descent living in the gang-dominated stratum of Echo Park, a tough Los Angeles neighborhood. The story is told alternately through the voices of Lucia and Celia, who through family and love are linked to the dangerous center of an emergent, fast-growing Latino gang dealing in guns and drugs. Celia watches her beloved older brother as he rises in power as gangbanger and changes in frightening ways, yet she herself struggles to find a way to live a life of goodness. Lucia, meanwhile, transgresses barriers in her own culture by forming her own female gang, the Fire Girls. Murray has a musician's ear for the language of these women, the first-generation children of immigrants coming of age in a violent place where the roles and rules of their mothers no longer obtain.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 REALISTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!, 2007-06-28
this book IS realistic no matter what other people r saying, it is one of the best books I have ever read.
It is rare that you get the viewpoint of a girl in the gang life but this book was hecka good at describing everyday life in the barrio. I wouldn't say it is realistic, more like if this ever happened, this is how it would happen in real life! If that makes sense.
You have to read this book. It is amazing.
xxx
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Can't Get Enough, 2006-08-15
I own and love this book!... It goes in the "barrio" life very deep. I can relate to it. And for all those who think "Oh the ones who join gangs are so stupid...yadiyadiya" yeah yeah it is dumb whoever made up gangs but sometimes you don't choose your life, it chooses you. Trust me, I know...So think before you speak, please. or just don't judge at all... Like they say "Only God can judge me".
Well, this book is great from the beggining to the end.. And if your not in the gang thing then just don't read it and quit complaining..
But for all others, buy it!!!!
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
 ESTUPIDAS INSTEAD OF LOCAS, 2006-05-11
Reading this book took me back to my days of the street and living in the projects. Life was one big beating; your parents beat you, the gangs beat you and even the nuns of school beat you. I hated it all and knew there was a better world out there and I would get out to see and live it. All of my family made it out of the barrio by working hard and staying focused BUT not by taking advantage of others. It made me sick to read Lucia and her pitiful gang robbing those poor young mothers of the money they need to raise and feed their families and selves. Shame on you! Parasites! So much smarts but plain stupid. Drugs are something to stay away from, not take nor sell no matter what the profit. My brother OD'ed like so many other kids stupid and weak enough to let drugs and gangs rule their life. It is necessary that Hispanics present more positive images to the world other than drugs, gangs and violence. We will never get ahead as a class until we stop using and hurting others like us. Use your brains to get out of the slums and make a better life for your family, and yourself. We need positive role models badly. Learn to help others even if it is just one person. All four of us daughters worked and went to college at the same time; our parents DID NOT PAY A PENNY for any of us. Then we all got well-paying jobs and worked hard, striving for even better jobs all the time. Two sisters are on their second career, one was in the A.F. and retired and the other was a police officer and retired. Both still work, one in the sheriff's office as a profiler and the other is a teacher. I am very proud of my three sisters, who could easily have been prostitutes, whores, druggies, users, dropouts or on welfare. But not one of us ever had to do these things nor would we allow ourselves to do those things. We still faced violence, rape, muggings, shootings and robbery around us every day. HARD WORK and DETERMINATION are wonderful motivators.
7 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
 We get it already! Gang life is not glamorous!, 2003-11-20
This book is nothing new. It's your typical storyline with an obvious problem, a goal, and a very predictable ending. The only difference is that the story is told from the perspective of two girls, which if you're already familiar with southern California gang stories is a complete spin-off from the movie Mi Vida Loca. In fact, if you were to combine the movie Blood In Blood Out with Mi Vida Loca, you would get this book. The good part about Locas was that even though I was one step ahead of the story the entire time, I did keep an interest in it. So by no means is this a slow paced book. Besides the lack of inspiration behind this novel, my only grievance with it is this: the book is narrated in the first person by two girls (Cecilia and Lucia). Since neither of the two really had much of an education, especially Lucia, Murray seems to have purposely squeezed in a few grammar errors to illustrate her lack of education. That's great because the reader can create a better image of who exactly the person is who is telling the story. However, if Lucia is supposed to be poorly educated and Murray wanted to show that in her writing, then she has to be consistent with it. I seriously doubt that a high school drop out from Echo Park is capable of constructing a quote like, "When I'm listening to them jumping sounds I start seeing that same picture again, there's Star Girl on the grass, smiling up at me with the fog in her breath twining up in the night air with mine." Other than that it wasn't too horrible. I'd recomend this book if you have a lot of time to kill. Otherwise just rent Mi Vida Loca and see the same thing.
11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Enforce Your Latina Stereotypes Here, 2003-06-24
This novel does not depict the reality of the mean streets. What was Murray thinking when she wrote this in a first person voice? Murray herself states that she had no real experience of the gangster life. She wrote what she imagined was a girl's life as a gangster. How much research did she do before she wrote this novel?! None, if you ask me. Her attempts to present the daily life of someone caught up in this world are cute.
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