Hi friends, happy Monday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m going to be posting my review of Angie Thomas’ novel Concrete Rose.

This novel is a prequel to her novel, The Hate U Give, which you can read my review of here.

Concrete Rose by: Angie Thomas: Maverick is a teen who helps provide for his family the only way he knows how, dealing for the King Lords. But his world completely flips when he finds out he’s a father, raising a baby, keeping up with school and dealing isn’t easy. When he finds a chance to go straight he takes it, but leaving isn’t easy either and when someone close to him is murdered he has to do some soul searching to figure out what his next steps should be. This was such an endearing and compelling novel that really hit the reader in the heartstrings. The plot was so fast moving, each chapter had something major happening that kept the reader hooked to see how it would all play out. The reader enjoyed the underlining comparison of the roses Maverick was planting to his life; it was a subtle addition to the story, yet had a big impact. Maverick was such a great character; he read as a teen who had made choices he thought he was supposed to make in order to provide but watching him realize that maybe those weren’t the ones he wanted to make and watching him blossom from the kid he was to the man he wanted to become was truly remarkable and showed that you can make changes to be the person you want to be. The reader thought that was a really good message to send to teens. These characters, all of them, were all really well developed; they all felt so human and real. The way they cared for one another and the strong family dynamics were really heartwarming to read. This was an emotional rollercoaster of a read but with every page the reader wanted to find out where Maverick’s story was going to go because as much as things didn’t always go right for him, there was always hope and the belief that things would get better. This was a fantastic, must read.