Return Fire

Return Fire was the most anticipated book in my classroom this year, even more than Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts. We read the Christina Diaz Gonzalez’s first book, Moving Target, as a class last year and even had a Skype call with the author. We were eager to learn what would happen to Cassie Arroyo and the spear; we weren’t disappointed.

Picking up where Moving Target left off, Cassie and Asher need to find the spear in order to free destiny. Having used the spear, Cassie is becoming increasingly less sure that that is the right decision. Wouldn’t it make more sense for her to make the right decisions for the world? After being betrayed and lied to by several people she loved, Cassie feels she can only count on herself, and the spear seems to be tugging at her…

Return Fire offers redemption for some villains, which means that Cassie is more forgiving than I am, or that this is a true middle grade novel where the reader needs to learn about giving second chances. I would not have been so kind as Cassie, which was a good discussion topic with the class. When can someone be forgiven? How do people learn to trust again?

The story wraps up fairly neatly in the end, and Gonzalez told us there won’t be any more in the series. I like when an author knows when to end a story, but will also be looking forward to her next book.