Realistic Fiction/Young Adult
316 pages

When a quiet Black high school student is beaten by a police officer, the town erupts into chaos.  Everyone in town has an opinion, leaving the victim and a witness completely dumbfounded.  Rashad just wishes the incident never happened, but Quinn can’t unsee the brutality he witnessed.

The story is told in alternating points of view which makes it impossible not to see how much the boys’ lives overlap, even though they were blind to each other’s experience.  There is great suspense and emotion as both boys seek a way to survive the conflict and figure out what their unique justice is going to be.  Neither one of them can move on, but they are going to have to see a path through.

I highly recommend this book to mature middle school students who are ready to consider issues of race and justice.  Although the topic is heavy, these characters wrestle with them as the thoughtful high school students they are.  There is an element of hope that if anyone is going to get American society to see the truth, it will be honest young people.