Supplier: Pinata Books

In his junior year, seventeen-year-old Abraham learns how to drive a stick shift. He falls in love for the first time. And he has been in three fights and suspended twice, all before Thanksgiving. His grandmother fears the hard future that awaits him, so she invites her son—the one with a fat police file who has hurt her so many times—back into the house. Abraham’s uncle is determined to make a man of him. Meanwhile, the boy’s feelings for his friend Ophelia grow, and she tries to understand why he fights. “This will end badly,” she warns.

At school, Abraham learns about genetics, and he wonders if people are born bad. Is it in their DNA? Was he born to punch and kick and scream and fight and destroy things because of the genes in his body? Is that what happened to his father? All he knows is that his father is dead and his mother is gone.

Joe Jiménez’s gritty debut novel for young adults, Bloodline, is a haunting novel that questions what it really means to be a man.