I received an ARC of this book in a giveaway from Goodreads & Simon Teen, but my review is all of my own thoughts.

It took me a little while to start enjoying the story, but that is mainly because I didn’t like the main character at the beginning of the story, and her friends annoyed me. The main character didn’t really seem like a senior in high school because of her maturity level. That being said, this book is still really good!

I knew that it wouldn’t be a light read, but that’s precisely why I liked it. It deals with so many issues that the Black community is still facing almost 30 years later from this story.

I had to keep reminding myself that the story took place in 1992 and not present day because of how similar the events were to right now.

While I didn’t like a lot of the characters, it’s mostly because of how realistically irritating they were. I did, however really like LaShawn’s character (especially closer to the end of the book).

Besides the obvious connections to the Black Lives Matter Movement, I liked how the author also talked about racism and violence through historical events that took place in the US. Since the American school system has utterly failed the Black community by glossing over or just completely negating historical events that involve the Black community, I liked that the author included discussions of several events that many people don’t know about.

Overall, I highly recommend that you read this book! It came out on August 4th, so you can get your own copy now (& request that your public library also get copies of it as well).