Hi friends, happy Monday – I hope everyone is doing well. Today I’m going to be posting my review of Nic Stone’s novel Dear Justyce.

You can read my review of book one: Dear Martin

Dear Justyce by: Nic Stone: Quan and Justyce grew up a few blocks away from each other, where Justyce found himself at an Ivy League college, Quan found himself behind bars. When a cop is shot, there has to be someone to blame and Quan takes the fall, even if he may not have done it. Just like Stone’s previous novel Dear Martin, Dear Justyce was a punch to the gut and an eye opening read to the intricacies towards systemic racism. This novel dug deep into those roots and showed a very biased system. It showed a system where if your skin isn’t white, you’re less likely to be cared about, you’re just assumed you did the crime. Following Quan’s story was truly gripping, it really honed in on kids who want to do to better, but when the system fails them they stop caring. This is a story that needed to be told and Stone told it well. It felt raw and real. The story was important and the sequence in which the plot was told was easy to follow and really let the reader get a grasp of who Quan is; it also gave more into who Justyce is too. It was really powerful the way this story was told; with the addition of letters it brought out this honesty and vulnerability towards the characters. These characters were really strongly developed, they felt like real people. Even Stone’s secondary characters had this raw edge to them that really gave weight to this story. The characters from the previous novel who made an appearance also grew and the reader got to know them better. Overall, this was a powerful read that should be read by everyone.