FIERCE AS THE WIND

Heartbreak drives a teenager to do a triathlon.

When Miho’s boyfriend of two years breaks up with her out of the blue, she is furious and heartbroken. It’s senior year, and she didn’t apply for college like her friends, so the only distraction she has is her job delivering pizzas on her bike. Following a moment of inspiration, Miho decides to do an Ironman race, believing that swimming, biking, and running 140.6 miles will be enough to feel better and (figuratively) leave her ex behind. But the Ironman fee is too expensive, so her friends create a triathlon-length race for her, the Miho-man. Together they help her train, but it isn’t easy, especially for a girl who hasn’t even run a mile in PE. With the support of her best friends, her dad, and others in her community, Miho fights against barriers and self-doubt to finish the race. Miho’s journey is a powerful coming-of-age story full of grit. Through Miho and other characters, the novel dives into the intersections of race, class, and sexual orientation. Although the book is set in Hawaii, Miho only moved there from California during middle school; the story is told from her first-person perspective, presenting Hawaii through the lens of an outsider who does not entirely understand her new home. Miho is multiracial, with Japanese, Black, and other, unspecified, ancestry. Secondary characters are diverse across multiple dimensions.

A powerful story full of determination.