Once again, she presents a story around an ordinary teenager, and transforms one character’s everyday struggles into an empathetic look at making mistakes and moving forward. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means to be a man.Ĭoncrete Rose demonstrates that Angie Thomas’ powers as a writer just keep growing. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the brutal murder of a loved one. When King Lord blood runs through your veins, though, you can’t just walk away. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father. Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. The setting is not difficult to picture as well and I could not imagine anything better than to see them adapt this book also.International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood. I absolutely turned out to be emotionally associated with the plot and angry when Mav did and upset when he did as well. She pulls you into the story and you can feel, hear, and be an integral part of each story.

If I am recalling appropriately (It has been a couple of years since I read the first book), Mav does a spell in jail, however this would have been in the missing years.Īngie Thomas has a particular talent with words. I do wonder whether there will be an in the middle of book, particularly as we never get to witness any real grievance among Mav and King like in The Hate you Give. It was amusing to see a few characters from the first book showing up in their more youthful years. The characters of Concrete Rose are amazing. It was entrancing to see Mav to be a young fellow who needed to grow up rapidly and what formed his life. I was captivated to read his backstory and while there are sixteen-years we actually don’t know about probably as this book closes before Starr is born. Continually showing his children to be responsible and how to carry on around people. I was so anxious to read Concrete Rose, as I liked The Hate you Give so much and Maverick is an impressive character in it.

Concrete rose paperback