“I had forgotten how beautiful fútbol was. Without referees, lines on the ground, trophies, tournaments, or life-changing contracts, the ball was a portal to happiness.”

In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan lives a double life. At home, she is a careful daughter living within her mother’s narrow expectations and under her father’s abusive rule. However, on the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent, which is rewarded when her team qualifies for the South American tournament. She’ll have a chance to see just how far those talents will take her, which is hopefully an athletic scholarship to a North American university. But the path to get there won’t be easy. Her parents don’t know about her passion and wouldn’t support her if they did, the boy she once loved is back in town and distracting her with her feelings for him, and her brother is already a fútbol star, who casts a wide shadow. In order to get what she wants out of her life, Camila will be forced to face her secrets and make her way in a world with no place for the dreams and ambitions of a girl like her.

There are some minor spoilers in this review.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into when I started reading Furia. I knew that it had an underlying theme of soccer, which is not something that I am terribly familiar with, but this book is really about finding your path and doing what you believe is best for you. It’s about coming to the understanding that sometimes you need to diverge from what others expect for you and realizing that you need to put yourself first. If you’re following your dreams every sacrifice you made for it, is worth it. There will be obstacles, but don’t give up. Camila’s tenacity to achieve her dreams is inspiring and hopefully this story will inspire others to follow theirs.

The romance is a central part of the plot, but it isn’t the primary focus and it is used in a way to highlight that if someone really loves you, ultimately they will support your decisions for what you need for yourself. I enjoyed the romance aspect, I really thought Diego was sweet, but because of the turmoil bouncing back and forth in Camila, she can come off as being a little bi-polar about the relationship. This makes sense to me because I feel like she deeply cares for Diego, but she cares more about her dreams. However, I can see where some readers would see this as he character not being fully developed. And as much as I wanted them to get together, I was ultimately happy with the decision that Camila makes.

One of the things that could have been explore further, though I get why it wasn’t, were the themes of feminism, women’s rights, and justice in the book. It discusses the ¡Ni una menos! movement, which is for justice for missing girls and women. I hadn’t heard of it before this book, so I was glad to learn a little more about it after reading it. This discussion is also paired with one revolving around the Machismo tradition in Latino culture. And while I think over all, the discussion around these is effective, the author could have pushed these topics even more, but if she had, it may have felt like she was trying to tackle too many things at once.

Overall, I would recommend this for readers looking for a book that mixes a coming of age story, romance, feminism, and of course soccer. Latinx, or I have recently seen Latine, teenagers may appreciate the representation and see aspects of their own family or culture in it. Also, Spanish is used throughout the book, not heavily, but it isn’t translated immediately. Personally, I found it to be a beautiful book and I look forward to reading another book by Yamile Saied Méndez sometime in the future.

Have you read Furia? What did you think? Do you have any other latinx/latine book recommendations? Let me know in the comments below!

Important Bits:
Length: 368 pages
Published: September 15, 2020 by Algonquin Young Readers
Content Warnings: Domestic Abuse, Family Violence, Blood, Violence against Women, Death of Girl
Awards: Goodreads Choice Award Young Adult Fiction (2020), Pura Belpré Young Adult Award Author (2021)
Series: Standalone.
Also by: Take the Mic (2019), Come on In (2020), Rural Voice (2020), Furia (2020), Reclaim the Stars (2022), Twice a Quinceañera (2022), Our Shadows Have Claws (2022), Calling the Moon (2022), The Grimoire of Grave Fates (2023), Love of My Lives (2023), Our of Our League (2024), The Beautiful Game (2025) and more…