But she struggles with outside influences that try to dictate her appearance, thoughts and behavior. She questions everything - beauty standards, sexuality. She strongly identifies with her Cuban family, her working-class background. You forget how old you are, you are with her - drinking a 32 ounce of beer ('because forties were illegal in Florida'), going to punk shows, listening to a two-minute song for empowerment. Road's narrative has an emotional immediacy, a social relevance that makes you believe her voice, makes you belong to her world. Road's illustrated novel, Indestructible - a memoir of adolescence in Miami in the early nineties, the story of a Cuban-American punk rock girl.

Yet I'm always curious to see how others form their own identities, their own cultures in a place that doesn't do much to support them. It's possible to be punk in this city - to create and exist outside of the mainstream. Miami is anti-punk - superficial, isolationist, materialistic. I grew up in South Florida, I've come back here (for now). 'When you think of Miami, you don't often think of punk. Beck Levy, Politics and Prose Bookstore Here is yet another book I wish was mandatory for fifteen-year-old girls.' You will cheer her on as she discovers her identity as the tough, irrepressible punk woman I had the pleasure of meeting recently.

In all the tumult, Road explores her Cuban roots and encounters homophobia, rape, and mortality. 'Join illustrator and zinester Cristy Road on her journey through adolescence in Miami. So powerful is Road's candid portrayal of growing pains, it provides the perfect comfort for angsty, self-loathing youth and sends older readers back down memory lane through their own adventures and mishaps of young adulthood.' Indestructible explores the toxic impact gender bias and proscribed norms have on questioning youth, while encouraging inquiry and protest against social constraints. Road uses gritty illustrations and wayward text to examine teenage promiscuity and coping mechanisms (read: getting stoned, wired, or shit-faced). 'This reflective narrative analyzes Road's formative high school years as a Latina outcast in 1990's Miami.

Indestructible by Cristy C. Road