MC Spotlight #21: Graffiti Girl by Kelly Parra

Hmmm, this looks familiar...haha...YA Fresh MC Spotlight #21!

Graffiti Girl

Graffiti art. It's bold. It's thrilling. And it can get a girl into serious trouble....

Raised by her single mom (who's always dating the wrong kind of man) in a struggling California neighborhood, Angel Rodriguez is a headstrong, independent young woman who channels her hopes and dreams for the future into her painting. But when her entry for a community mural doesn't rate, she's heartbroken. Even with winning artist Nathan Ramos -- a senior track star and Angel's secret crush -- taking a sudden interest in Angel and her art, she's angry and hurt. She's determined to find her own place in the art world, her own way.

That's when Miguel Badalin -- from the notorious graffiti crew Reyes Del Norte -- opens her eyes to an underground world of graf tags and turf wars. She's blown away by this bad boy's fantastic work and finds herself drawn to his dangerous charm. Soon she's running with Miguel's crew, pushing her skills to the limit and beginning to emerge as the artist she always dreamed she could be. But Nathan and Miguel are bitter enemies with a shared past, and choosing between them and their wildly different approaches to life and art means that Angel must decide what matters most before the artist inside of her can truly break free.

Read an excerpt here.

Kelly Parra debuted into young adult fiction in 2007 with her Latina novel Graffiti Girl, which garnered attention as a double nominee for the Romance Writers of America RITA award, a Latinidad YA top pick, as well as chosen for the California High School Reading Collection and National Book Foundation "BookUpNYC" program. Her latest novel Invisible Touch has hailed fresh praise from bestselling author Laurie Faria Stolarz, and given the Gold Award of Excellence from TeensReadToo. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and co-author of the popular young adult blog, YA Fresh. Visit the author's website @ www.KellyParra.com.