Ratings4
Average rating2.8
Six years ago, Moss Jefferies' father was murdered by an Oakland police officer. Along with losing a parent, the media's vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks.
Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals by their own school. New rules. Random locker searches. Constant intimidation and Oakland Police Department stationed in their halls. Despite their youth, the students decide to organize and push back against the administration.
This is the story of a diverse student body. There are gay characters, trans characters, non-binary characters, bisexual/biromantic characters, asexual characters, Black characters, Latinx characters, Muslim characters, undocumented characters, characters with disabilities.
When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.
Reviews with the most likes.
1.5 Started audio, but though read by the author himself it wasn't particularly great, so after 3/4 just skimmed the book to end. Why was this so long? Not sure if brutal editing would have redeemed this though. It's a checklist of diversity with no actual development given to any of the diverse characters, the main character is pretty (I believe unintentionally) awful and takes emotionally from all other characters, particularly the female identifying characters, and the trauma is continuous with no build, break, or resolution. Also, it feels implausible that everything happened so quickly but continuously. Had high hopes for this, but was disappointed.
This book was trying too hard to be cool. I just couldn't get into it.