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An illustrated cover of To Our Untamed Core, featuring a Brown boy standing in front of the title font with his back to the "camera" looking off to the side. There is a hole through his back that has a beam of light shining through it. In the distance is a pyramid with the sun behind its peak, the sunlight shining straight through the hole in the boy's back.

To Our Untamed Core

The Hunger Games meets The Sunbearer Trials in bestselling and award-winning author Sonido Reyes’s YA dystopia about a boy who survives by hiding his truth until his boyfriend is sentenced to El Torneo — a brutal, fight-to-the-death game — where he must risk everything to save him.

Book Cover

Artist: Pablo Hurtado de Mendoza

Cover Design: Jessie Gang

Centuries after the conquistadors claimed the Afueras for their own, Temo spends his life obeying the Holy Order’s decree, undergoing their sacraments to tame his supposedly violent nature.


The only rule he breaks: hiding that he’s trans. If that fact is discovered, Temo will face El Torneo, a brutal, fight-to-the-death game pitting the untamed against one another. No Afuereño who enters El Torneo ever escapes with their life.


But when Temo’s boyfriend is unexpectedly arrested and thrown into the deadly tournament, he’ll do anything to rescue Ollin from his gruesome fate, even if it means entering El Torneo himself.


Only there's far more to this tournament than meets the eye—survival is just the beginning. When the cost of saving the one he loves is higher than he ever imagined, is Temo willing to pay it?

Trigger Warnings ◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈◈ ⬩ Violence ⬩ Gore ⬩ Death ⬩ Racism ⬩ Colonial violence ⬩ Religious trauma ⬩ Indoctrination ⬩ Cannibalism ⬩ Decapitation
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