Review of Concrete Rose By Angie Thompson ✊🏿
I first heard of New York Times bestselling author Angie Thomas from her debut book The Hate U Give that was published in 2017 and made into a movie in 2018. The Hate U Give was followed by sequel On the Come Up.
Concrete Rose, a prequel to the Hate U Give, is the coming-of-age story of Maverick “Mav” Carter a seventeen-year-old who is in love but is being pulled between two worlds. The streets are telling him he can make fast money selling drugs and his family who wants him to live a respectable life. The ante is up when he finds out a one-time encounter has made him a father.
What is a teenager with no skills to do to provide for his family? His homies want him to join the drug came. He knows that he can make fast money to provide but the danger is real with then. He gets another wake-up call when he loses the person closes to him who tried to keep him on the right path. Things don’t look aren’t looking good for young Mav. Then he gets an opportunity from an unlikely source to help his family the legal way. Will Mav take the lifeline offered to him even if it makes it harder for him to care for his growing family? I won’t ruin the story by revealing the ending so you will have to pick up your copy to find out what he does.
I really enjoyed reading this book as it was filled with emotions and twists and turns. Thomas was able to bring readers into Maverick’s world as a young Black man just trying to find his way.
Concrete Rose promises to be one of the books that will be read for generations to come. I sympathize with Maverick’s problem and found myself cheering for this young mans as he works to make a life for himself and his family.
Angie Thomas, formerly a teen rapper, is from Jackson Mississippi, where she still resides. She is a winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant in 2015. You can learn more about her at https://angiethomas.com/.
Candace Waller is the author of, What Goes Around Comes Around the sequel Good Things Comes, and the upcoming book Lessons I Learned From Loving You, A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Healing.