Out of Darkness

by Ashley Hope Pérez

Overview

A dangerous forbidden romance rocks a Texan oil town in 1937, when segregation was a matter of life and death.

A Top Ten Most Challenged Book of the Year

"This is East Texas, and there's lines. Lines you cross, lines you don't cross. That clear?" New London, TX. 1937. Naomi Vargas is Mexican American. Wash Fuller is Black. These teens know the town's divisive racism better than anyone. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. And the consequences can be explosive.

Naomi and Wash dare to defy the rules, and the New London school explosion serves as a ticking time bomb in the background. Can their love survive both prejudice and tragedy?

Race, romance, and family converge in this riveting novel that transplants Romeo and Juliet to a bitterly segregated Texas town. Includes a fascinating author's note detailing the process of research and writing about voices that have largely been excluded from historical accounts.

A Printz Honor Book
A Booklist 50 Best YA Books of All Time Selection
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Book
Winner of the Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823445035
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	45,149
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Ashley Hope Pérez grew up in Texas and is the author of three award-winning novels for young adults. Out of Darkness received a Printz Honor and the Tomás Rivera Book Award. She is an assistant professor of world literatures at The Ohio State University and lives in Columbus with her two sons.

Editorial Reviews

"A Mexican girl and a black boy begin an ill-fated love in the months leading up to a catastrophic 1937 school explosion in East Texas. The powerful story opens with the legendary school explosion in New London and then rewinds to September 1936. Naomi has begrudgingly left behind her abuelitos in San Antonio for a new life with her younger half siblings, twins, and their long-absent white father, Henry. Now a born-again Christian, Henry struggles to atone for his sins. The siblings struggle to fit into the segregated oil town, where store signs boast 'No Negroes, Mexicans, or dogs.' The precocious twins read better than half the senior class, and dark-skinned Naomi is guilty of not only being Mexican, but also of being 'prettier than any girl in school.' Their one friend is Wash, a brilliant African-American senior from the black part of town. Pérez deftly weaves multiple perspectives―including Henry and 'the Gang,' the collective voice of the racist students―into her unflinchingly intense narrative, but the story ultimately belongs to Naomi and Wash. Their beautifully detailed love story blossoms in the relative seclusion of the woods, where even stepfathers can't keep them apart. But as heartbreaking events unfold, the star-crossed lovers desperately hope that any light can penetrate the black smoke cloud of darkness spreading around them. A powerful, layered tale of forbidden love in times of unrelenting racism."―starred, Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher