By Billie Letts
(Reviewed by Carla Hedstrom)

Billie Letts has once again written a story with unforgettable characters who find a family and a home. In Where the Heart Is, Letts told the story of a teenage girl abandoned in Walmart by her good-for-nothing boyfriend—and then undertakes creating a family from the people she meets in a small town in Oklahoma.

In The Honk and Holler Opening Soon, another disparate group of people finds support and caring in spite of their disabilities, foibles, and dysfunctional families.

Now, in Made in the U.S.A., Letts tells the story of 15-year-old Lutie and her brother, 11-year-old Fate, two kids whose mother is dead and whose father left them for the bright lights of Las Vegas. When their 300-pound stepmother dies in Walmart, Lutie and Fate see a chance to find their father and improve their lives. However, once they reach Vegas, they find out it’s not going to be as simple as they thought. Lutie and Fate fall on hard times and are faced with some really difficult choices, but there is light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel.

Juan Vargas is a man trying to avoid his past, but the needs of these two children force him to return to his home in Hugo, Oklahoma, where he knows he can get help for them. Once again, Letts uses her theme of a collection of warm-hearted people opening their lives and homes to those in need, this time Lutie and Fate. In Hugo, the children and Juan learn to trust others once more and to understand that the world can be a place of happiness and belonging.

Although this novel is targeted to an adult market, I think it, much like Where the Heart Is, will also appeal to a young adult audience. Teens who read it might consider it a cautionary tale about finding fame and fortune far from home, but it is also a story about finding oneself and overcoming obstacles.