Cuban American middle schooler Rafa (Raphael) and his best friends decided to take their fantasy adventure game to the next level, real life, and got busted when the school slushie machine they were absconding with breaks loose and crashes into the principal's car. Rafa's dad skips all the regular punishments, and packs him off to spend a month working at a friend's ranch in New Mexico. Rafa is distressed about leaving his Miami friends, but even more worried about leaving his mother, who has cancer.
But Rafa is a really good, cooperative kid, and soon he's learning the parts of a horse and getting to experience manure for the first time. And there's a really cool girl his own age, Jennie Kim, the Korean American daughter of the ranch librarian. She too has a sadness-the recent death of her father. But their growing bond is formed not just from shared sadness, but from their partnership in figuring out what's up with all the weirdness going on at the ranch (and a shared love of snacks).
A mysterious man in a green sweater keeps showing up...which isn't that odd. But Rafa being blamed for unpleasant mischief he had no part in is, and that's just the start of reality on the ranch going seriously off-kilter. And when Rafa learns who the strange man is, and what he wants, he's faced with a desperately serious situation (spoiler--it involves time travel, and Rafa's mom....)
It's a truly engrossing story, and though there's sadness here the twists and turns make for entertaining reading. Although it's a little distracting to think too much about the dad's questionable decision to keep Rafa from spending potentially precious time with his mother, the story more than kept my enthusiasm high. A secondary character, a veteran suffering from PTSD who looks after the ranch's horses, was a great addition to the ensemble, providing a grounding adult perspective. And the mystery that need solving was very satisfying in a thought-provoking time travel way.
short answer--I liked it lots!
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