Getting a Life

How do you cope when you are sixteen and your uncle kicks you out? Hildie Vasquez finds herself squatting in a house on the downtown East Side of Vancouver with five other young people. Her uncle never wanted her in the first place, she reasons. He just had to take her when her Canadian mother and Salvadoran father were killed in the El Salvador civil war. When Julia, one of the squatters, is murdered, the police charge Hildie with the killing, and the other four friends scatter.Hildie...
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How do you cope when you are sixteen and your uncle kicks you out? Hildie Vasquez finds herself squatting in a house on the downtown East Side of Vancouver with five other young people. Her uncle never wanted her in the first place, she reasons. He just had to take her when her Canadian mother and Salvadoran father were killed in the El Salvador civil war. When Julia, one of the squatters, is murdered, the police charge Hildie with the killing, and the other four friends scatter.Hildie worries about how her friends will survive, and once out of the detention centre heads back to the downtown East Side to find them. Instead she encounters Steve, Julia's former pimp, and accuses him of the murder. He retaliates by pushing her in front of a bus and promising to finish her off later. He begins to stalk her.Can Hildie discover evidence to give the police about Steve? Can she find how to grasp what happened to her parents and find some closure? Can she figure out how to help her friends and herself to get a life?Reading this suspenseful teen story, you will want to read right through to the harrowing end.