Ok, I'm not sure if this has been done before, because it sounds sort of like a cliche. If you have heard of a story like this before, please tell me!
Here is an extremely rough (and likely to change) outline:
A 15 year old girl goes to the Mexican Yucatan peninsula on a vacation with her family. She is separated from them on a day trip to Tulum, a crowded ruin, and misses her bus back. She has no way of contacting them, and has no way to get back by herself. A Mexican girl whose job is to clean the seaweed off the beach by the ruin notices her and allows her to stay with her and her family. The visitor (who took Spanish in high school, so she can understand some of the language) reluctantly agrees, due to lack of a better option.
After staying for a night, she is told that she can continue to live with them if she pays for her own share of the food and contributes to the rent, although the father is not sure about this decision. She ends up working at Tulum as a tour guide because she can speak English. She is not found by her parents, who are discovered to abuse her, making her not want to return.
She spends three months there, learning much about the country, and starts to think of the Mexican family she was adopted by as her real family. She is discovered by her birth family (I'm not sure how yet) and is taken on a plane back to America, although she does not want to go back.
The Mexican family that sheltered her is charged of kidnapping, and the lawyer blames the girl's opinions about them as Stockholm syndrome. It is never disclosed if this is true. The court finds them guilty and they are sent to jail for 20 years. She is not allowed to speak to them and feels very guilty for causing these troubles.
Her father abuses her again, and the girl becomes deeply depressed. When the family gets out of jail, they return to Mexico.
Four years later, she graduates high school and spends the money saved for her college tuition on a flight to Mexico and goes straight to the Tulum ruins. The book ends with the girl, now 18, seeing the girl who first invited her to stay, still sweeping the seaweed off the beach.
What do you think? Any name suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
-ClippedWings
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