My Favorite Scar

A teenage girl and her gangster father embark on a road trip toward revenge in this award-winning coming-of-age Argentinian noir. Fifteen-year-old Ámbar has never known any parent other than her father, Víctor Mondragón, nor any life other than his—the life of a criminal. On any given Friday night, Ámbar longs to be at the arcade or a rock concert, but she’s more likely to be patching up Víctor’s latest bullet hole in a dingy motel or creating a new set of fake identities for the both of them. Although she has come to terms with the realities of her life and enjoys aspects of the freedom from societal constraints that lawlessness offers her, she yearns for love and stability—to be like every other teenage girl. When a tattooed mercenary kills Víctor’s best friend and vows that Víctor is next, father and daughter set off on a joyride across Argentina in search of bloody retribution—kill or be killed. But Ámbar’s growing pains hurt worse than her beloved sawed-off shotgun’s kickback as she begins to question the structure of her world. How much is her father not telling her? Could her life ever be different? And will she survive long enough to find out? My Favorite Scar is bitterly poetic, as gritty as it is devastating. Buenos Aires–based author Nicolás Ferraro has once again proven himself to be the king of Argentinian noir with this atmospheric, emotional character study that won Spain’s prestigious Dashiell Hammett Prize in 2022.