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Side Chick Nation - Aya de León by Aya de León 
Published by Dafina on June 25, 2019
A Justice Hustlers Novel
She’s beautiful, unpredictable—and on the run from dangerous men. But this
ex-side chick is ready to risk everything to help others in trouble . . .Fed up with her married Miami boyfriend, savvy Dulce has no problem stealing his
drug-dealer stash and fleeing to her family in the Caribbean. But when she gets bored in rural Santo Domingo, she escapes on a sugar daddy adventure to Puerto Rico. Her new life is one endless party, until she's caught in Hurricane Maria—and witnesses the brutal collision of colonization and climate change, as well as the international vultures who plunder the tragedy for a financial killing, making shady use of relief funds to devastate the island even more. Broke, traumatized, and stranded, Dulce’s only chance to get back to New York may be a sexy, crusading journalist who’s been pursuing her. But is she hustling him or falling for him?Meanwhile, New York-based mastermind thief Marisol already has her hands full fleecing a ruthless CEO who’s stealing her family’s land in Puerto Rico, while trying to get her relatives out alive after the hurricane. An extra member in her crew could be game-changing, but she’s wary of Dulce’s unpredictability and reputation for drama. Still, Dulce’s determination to get justice draws Marisol in, along with her formidable Lower East Side Women’s Health Clinic’s heist squad. But their race-against-the-clock plan is soon complicated by powerful men who turn deadly when ex-side chicks step out of the shadows and demand to call the shots . . .
Dulce Garcia goes through it in this installment of A Justice Hustlers novels, and I was here for it from chapter one to the end.
Dulce runs from an abuser in New York to the Dominican Republic, has to think on her feet to survive and when it looks like it can’t get worse for her, Hurricane Maria rains down on her, literally.
Aya de Leon is a prolific writer that takes you into the story, and I enjoy anything she writes. The only thing for this book that keeps it from being a five read for me was that at times I felt the writing was a bit disjointed and I had to go back and read to figure out what was going on. However, with that said, it did not stop me from enjoying the story, and I look forward to the next one.
I highly recommend her books if you enjoy Urban fiction.
Reviewed by: Linda C.
About Aya de León
Aya de Leon teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley. Kensington Books publishes her Justice Hustlers feminist heist novels, UPTOWN THIEF (2016), THE BOSS (2017), THE ACCIDENTAL MISTRESS (2018), and in 2019 SIDE CHICK NATION the first novel to be published about the hurricane in Puerto Rico. She has received acclaim in the Washington Post, Village Voice, SF Chronicle, and The Establishment. A graduate of Harvard College, with an MFA from Antioch University, Aya has been an artist in residence at Stanford University, a Cave Canem poetry fellow, and a slam poetry champion. She publicly married herself in the 90s, and from 1995 to 2012 hosted an annual Valentine’s Day show that focused on self-love. Her work has also appeared in Ebony, Essence, Guernica, Writers Digest, Huffington Post, Catapult, The Root, The Toast, VICE, Ploughshares, Bitch Magazine, on Def Poetry, and she’s an advice columnist for Mutha Magazine.
In 2020, Kensington will publish her first spy novel about FBI infiltration of an African American political organization. She is currently at work on a YA spy girl series featuring African American and Latina teens called GOING DARK, as well as a picture book to help talk to children about racism. She blogs and tweets about race, gender, and culture at @AyadeLeon and ayadeleon.com.
