Joyride By Anna Banks Carly Sparknotes

In the critical literacy book, Joyride, by Anna Banks Carly, is a mexican girl living illegally in the U.S. with her brother Julio in a small town in Florida after her parents were caught and sent back to Mexico.
As the book begins, Carly is working her nighttime shift at a gas station. After one of her usual shoppers leaves the store, she sees a man pointing a gun at the shopper outside. She takes the gun from inside the store and begins to threaten the man, after some arguing between the two, he finally leaves and steals Carly’s bike which leads to Carly having no transportation to get to school or the gas station. Following the incident, she gets some unwanted attention at school and with the law.
One of the strongest themes throughout

Banks describes how “she wore a plain T-shirt and jeans everyday. Never raised her hand in class, never spoke to anyone. No makeup, as far as Arden could tell- shifted quietly between classes in a please-don’t-notice-me sort of way. If he hadn’t been scoping her out for this specific plan, he wouldn’t have known she existed.” this shows that Carly doen’t want to let anyone into her life in fear of their trust being broken and secrets being revealed. All Arden wants to do is to get closer to Carly which shows that Carly is hard to trusting others and Arden can’t prove to her why she should trust him. Another detail that shows thehard times the characters go through is when Uncle Cletus stops breathing and Carly resorts to calling Arden, even though they aren’t supposed to talk to eachother. “Arden, Im sorry, I didnt know who else to call.” which further shows the trust between Carly and Arden that she trusts him enough to call him in this hard

For example, when Uncle Cletus is rushed to the hospital, Carly and Arden are standing next to eachother in the waiting room, and Arden doesn’t believe Cletus can prevail against death again. “But sometimes tenacity loses it’s battle with death. He’s seen it happen before.” (pg. 232) Which shows that even though Uncle Cletus and Arden have been through tough times and they have gotten closer together through each death, the battle with Cletus isn’t over. Through the constant daytime drinking, in attempt to flush away his painful memories, it shows that Cletus has lost too much to tough times, and he may lose himself, if he hasn’t already. In contrast, an example of Sheriff Moss shows that through all his tough times, he seems unfazed and willing to make tough times for others. “They both turn to face Sheriff Moss in all his rage veiled by a thin mask of indifference.” (pg. 235) which shows that the Sheriff would rather tear people apart, thinking he is ‘indifferent’ to others than to admit he is struggling through losing everything, along with the only thing left, his son’s trust. Generally speaking these examples show that through the use of dialogue, the author develops the idea that hard times affect others differently, but trust can bring them back together if they try hard