What It Takes to Get to Vegas

by Yxta Maya Murray

Book Overview

What It Takes to Get to Vegas has been described by The Arizona Republic as "a juicy tale of ambition, passion and grit that is as much fun to read as a good trash talk session with your best friend." Growing up among the championship hopefuls and alleyway gladiators of East L.A., Rita Zapata sees in boxing a ticket to something better. At eighteen, she's earned the title "Queen of the Streetfighters." Then she meets Billy, an enigmatic, intense fighter...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802137377
• ISBN13: 9780802137371
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Fun, wonderfully narrated,exciting,hopeful, and tragic

Rita Zapada is a beautiful young girl raised by a very attractive mother who has a reputation around town. Her and her mother both saw themselves somewhere else besides having lots of kids and being poverty stricken in east LA. They were both beautiful and used this to get men. However, those men used them and ultimately got them nowhere, until Rita meets Billy, who gets her into places she would never imagine. Rita's character is lovable, funny, tough. With this book written in spanglish it's way fun to read and feels as if she's talking right to you. The end was very surprising to me and I would've never expected that climax. It was a great book that I won't soon forget.

A struggle to get respect in the Barrio, excellent.

In this new novel, we continue to see what it takes to make it in the Barrio, and how perceptions are created without any input from the person being most affected by it. Murray captures the cruelty and joys of life on the street and on the lower rungs of Mexican social life. Very good.