Angie Thomas is now a household name, just three years after her first book, The Hate U Give, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller YA list. The Hate U Give was longlisted for the National Book Award and subsequently made into a feature film. The author here returns to Garden Heights, the setting for 16-year-old Starr Carter's story in The Hate U Give, to tell the story of Starr's father, Maverick Carter, as a 17-year-old in Concrete Rose.
With an announced 500,000-copy first printing, Concrete Rose depicts Mav as the son of a former gang legend who's dealing for the King Lords in order to support his mom, who's working two jobs while his legendary father is incarcerated. But when Mav finds out he's about to become a father, he decides to go straight. He discovers it's not that easy to walk away.