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Compromised

por Heidi Ayarbe

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1126241,706 (4.21)2
With her con-man father in prison, fifteen-year-old Maya sets out from Reno, Nevada, for Boise, Idaho, hoping to stay out of foster care by finding an aunt she never knew existed, but a fellow runaway complicates all of her scientifically-devised plans.
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“The plan? It’s totally ad hoc. Every time I try to create a hypothesis and procedure, anomalies come up and I’m scrambling to make sense of everything. Maybe a good scientist would be able to come up with methods to work with the change in elements. Maybe I’m a really bad scientist.”

“If there is a God, he must be a scientist and we’re lab rats. I look up. What if the sky is the lens of God’s monocle? And nighttime is the blink of His eye? ‘The data has been compromised!’ I want to shout.”


15-year-old Maya Sorenson comes home from school one day to discover that her house in an upscale Reno, Nevada neighbourhood is being emptied of furniture and appliances. The next day, the repo men come for her dad’s Beamer . . . and the police for Mr. Sorenson himself. He is cuffed and taken into police custody for tax evasion, fraud, and embezzlement. Maya is not surprised. She’s been through something like this many times before, but until now her scam artist, con-man father has been prescient enough to get them out of town before the authorities catch up. Also, she’s never before had to deal with leaving a nice house at such a respectable address.

Because Maya’s mother died years before and there is no family to care for the teenager, she’s taken to a temporary children’s shelter until her case can be sorted out and longer term foster care arranged. With her relentless brainiac “vomiting” of scientific facts, the whip-smart girl quickly makes enemies at the home, but she does not scare easily. She also shows she has the conscience and moral centre her father lacks. She looks out for a younger boy, new prey for the meanest three group-home kids, and she monitors her possibly suicidal roommate Nicole’s Prozac bottle, fearing that the girl is at risk of overdosing.

The children’s shelter staff are eager to hand off Maya to a Bible-thumping foster family, but before they do so, Maya has a last visit with her imprisoned father. During that meeting her dad reveals that he has relinquished legal responsibility for her. His situation is “complex”, he says; it’s in his daughter’s best interests that he does this. He also reveals that Maya has an aunt: her mother’s sister, Sarah. In order to locate this woman, Maya needs to find the shoebox containing her mum’s personal effects and letters. (It was left in the house that the two Sorensons were forced to vacate).

The plot thickens when Maya leaves the children’s home early one morning to retrieve the shoebox, only to discover that her roommate has followed her. Nicole has been in foster care for nine years; her mum was a meth-head, and her absent father’s life has apparently been dictated by the mob. He seems to have sent the girl post cards, however, and she’s pretty sure he’s in Chicago. If Maya knows science, the bright, illiterate, and street-smart Nicole is a veritable walking encyclopedia of organized crime. She can give her new roommate as good as she gets, and she quickly convinces Maya that she is in need of someone with common sense, not to mention a sense of direction. From the contents of the shoe box, Maya has determined that her aunt is likely in Boise, Idaho. Two girls travelling together, Nicole points out, are much safer than one entirely on her own.

It’s not easy getting to Boise. First, there is the problem of how and what they will eat. The two have next to no money. Luckily, Nicole is a skilled shoplifter. Second, there’s the question of where they can rest and sleep. It’s November and unseasonably cold. And then, of course, there’s the matter of travelling itself; walking and hitchhiking are both fraught with difficulty, especially for young girls. Maya and Nicole’s challenges multiply when they gain an additional travelling companion: Klondike, a ten-year-old disfigured boy with Tourette’s. At the mercy of his tics and a brain that has him endlessly spewing profanity, he is fleeing trauma of his own.

Ayarbe’s is a gritty but engaging young adult novel. There are rough situations and some pretty rough language as well. The author leavens the dark subject matter with a fair bit of snappy, humorous—if not always believable—dialogue. There are a few other problems, too. Although the novel is mostly realistic, some elements of the plot are not plausible. (The group home’s allowing Nicole, a suicidal teen, to be responsible for her own psychoactive medication doesn’t ring at all true. The degree of the girl’s illiteracy and the plot development that hinges on it are also hard to credit.) Nevertheless, the basic details the author provides about the chaos, squalor, and dangers faced by homeless kids (fleeing dysfunctional families and institutionalized care) are convincing.

The book is overly long, and I think the author could’ve tightened it up by reining in Nicole’s stories of gangsters. Ayarbe might also have refrained from reporting Maya’s every sigh, and the author could have toned down her protagonist’s obsessive use of the scientific method to solve problems. Both became tedious reading after a while, On the whole, however, this is a satisfying novel, with an appropriately open-ended conclusion. It is fairly fast paced, and it explores many themes of interest to young adults. ( )
  fountainoverflows | Aug 14, 2019 |
I found COMPROMISED to be an honest portrayal of homelessness and life on the streets. Heidi clearly understands the dangers kids face. Her characters feel they can't turn to the police because of the violence they've encountered in their own homes and in the foster care system. However, their fear of the authorities leaves them entirely alone to cope with the cold, hunger, and violence. And they're children; they struggle to even read a map.

Since I've finished the book, I've actually been thinking a lot about the title COMPROMISED. It's a great, eye-catching, memorable title. But it also suits the book. While Heidi's novel is about a terrible, sad situation, there are no evil characters. Every character, even the minor ones, thinks they're doing the right thing, or at least the best thing, given the circumstances. Their lives are full of compromises. Maya's Dad surrenders her to the foster system, her friend, Nicole, shoplifts food and medicine.

The entire story is seen through the eyes of Maya, who is a useful window for readers into the world of homelessness. It's a completely new life to her, so she is as shocked and disturbed as the reader. However, she hides her emotions behind scientific facts, and is always formulating a plan. Her way of life is compromised by homelessness. She quickly discovers, despite her plans, there's nothing about her life that she can control.

So... a gritty story. But I think Heidi focuses on the second part of her title too, the idea of "promise". In the course of the book, Maya learns to open herself up to all different types of people and situations, illiteracy, Tourette's, transsexuals. And she ends up finding her own family and friends on the street.

So COMPROMISED is a gritty read, but it's also truthful. It's filled with memorable, realistic characters, and a backdrop of love, hope, and family, even in the midst of darkness. And it's a great read. ( )
1 vota annemlanderson | Mar 31, 2013 |
From the very first moment I picked up this book, I found it extremely hard to put it down. I recommend this book for anyone who's a fan of YA novels. Compromised by Heidi Ayarbe is a tale of a girl, Maya, whos always been on the run with her con-man father her whole life, scam to scam, changing idenities. But when one of her father's scams goes awry, his choices catch up to him and land him in jail. With no other family, or so Maya was told, she finds herself in foster care. But once she catches word of an aunt she's never truly known, she runs away and makes unexpected friends with two people she never thought she would. A story about what it means to finally come home. An amazingly good read, I can't stress that enough. :) ( )
  kissmeimgone | Jun 2, 2011 |
Characters that feel like real, flawed and interesting people, and I love the ambiguity of the ending. I admit this is a book that made me feel panicky in the middle; I paged through the remaining half to prepare myself emotionally for what I was afraid of. A solid story and well written! ( )
1 vota elissajanine | May 20, 2011 |
Maya's life has been far from typical, but it's about to get even more so when her con-man father gets arrested. Maya finds herself in a group home - miserable and alone. Then she gets word that there is a relative out there that may be able to take her in, but none of the adults believe her or are willing to help her track them down. So one night she sets off on her own, a runaway from the state with a highly unlikely companion.

Maya, who now goes by Jeopardy on the streets, doesn't realize just how much she doesn't know about life until she hits the roads to try and find her aunt. She learns about life and responsibility, while tackling moral dilemmas she never even imagined before. As she comes to understand the world better, with the help of her the companions she meets along the way, she begins to doubt the way she looks at life.

A fantastic story of a girl finding out that there is more to life than she could have possibly imagined. Not all things turn out OK, but that's what real life is all about sometimes.

5/5 ( )
1 vota jasmyn9 | May 9, 2011 |
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With her con-man father in prison, fifteen-year-old Maya sets out from Reno, Nevada, for Boise, Idaho, hoping to stay out of foster care by finding an aunt she never knew existed, but a fellow runaway complicates all of her scientifically-devised plans.

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