Allegedly - Tiffany D. Jackson

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Mary B. Addison killed a baby.

Allegedly. She didn't say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: a white baby had died while under the care of a churchgoing Black woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary and the jury made it official. But did she do it?

There wasn't a point to setting the record straight before, but now she's got Ted - and their unborn child - to think about. When the state threatens to take her baby, Mary's fate now lies in the hands of the one person she distrusts the most: her Momma. No one knows the real Momma. But does anyone know the real Mary?"

📚📚📚 

God, this book. As mentioned in my summer reading recap, it ROCKED ME. First of all, what an indictment of our justice system and how fucked it is. I mean, I know it is. But every time I read anything, fact or fiction, delving into it, I realize another dimension of just how truly fucked it is. This book in particular got into how children are treated, and...it's trash. Utter trash. Whether someone, especially a child, has committed a crime or not, mistreating them to the degree that people in the penal system are mistreated is horrendous.

Now, getting into the writing, I thought the decision to intersperse excerpts from Mary's trial and flashbacks into the present day was the best way to tell this story. The reader goes into Mary's story in basically the same way the jury and the general public did, and then we have to form our own opinions with the little bit of insight we're given. And even with the insight we're given, there's really no way of knowing what actually happened or if you're making the right call. It kind of gives you an idea of what it would be like to be in the jurors' shoes, which...it seems like a difficult position to be in, but also it reenforces that I don't ever want to jump to conclusions or make assumptions the way that people did in Mary's case.

I don't want to give any of the story away, so beyond this, I'll just say this is a heavy book. And even after finishing it, I've been thinking about it for days. If you haven't read this book, you should.

Chain-Gang All-Stars - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death matches before packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, Thurwar considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games. But CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo, and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors, to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means..."

I don't even know what to say about this book. It popped up on my radar and I ordered it, and then I kept seeing people talking about it, so I was like okay, need to read this right away. We decided to read it for our book club in July, I took it with me on vacation, and vacation basically became "how much time can I spend reading without garnering complaints" time until I finished it. At which point I traded reading time for thinking about what I just read time, because I can't get it out of my head. 

I read this shortly after Rust in the Root, and while they are totally different stories, both books blend fiction and reality in incredible and compelling ways. CAPE is fictional, but the underlying truths that led to its creation and acceptance in the book are very much a reality, and Adjei-Brenyah also includes footnotes throughout the book sharing facts about the prison industrial complex in the United States, which were very enlightening about the reality of our penal system. I also thought he did a brilliant job of humanizing the characters who were forced into the CAPE program and highlighting the way our "justice" system actively works to dehumanize people.

And speaking of humanizing the characters...THE CHARACTERS. They were so good. Love them or hate them, they were all so well-developed and realistic. I mean...Staxxx is officially on my list of favorite characters of all time. I read a lot of books, usually like nine or ten of them at a time, and there's always a new one waiting in the wings to rotate in after I finish something, so while it's not like I finish a book and then am like "deleted from my brain, I will never think of you again," it is pretty unusual for me to actively and regularly continue thinking about something for days after I read it. I'm a week out from finishing this one, and at least a couple of times a day I catch myself thinking about Staxxx's story and her ending or remembering key moments from the book and reflecting on them. There are still five months left in 2023, so I suppose something could come along and unseat it, but as of right now, this is the best book I've read this year. Incredible. Thought-provoking. Important. Go read it.

Punching the Air - Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"The story that I thought/was my life/didn't start on the day/I was born

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he's seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. 'Boys just being boys' turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

The story that I think/will be my life/starts today

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal's bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?"

As a white woman, I feel a little weird writing a review of a book about the disproportionate (frequently wrongful) incarceration of Black people and the broken justice system in the United States, particularly since white women so frequently and disgustingly weaponize their privilege to harm Black people and other people of color. But this book is so powerful and Amal's voice so strong, that I had to share this book in case I have friends who didn't have it on their radar. Potential spoilers included.

The book starts off with Amal's trial. We don't find out details of what happened right away, just snippets about a fight with a white teen, who ended up in a coma. Amal is found guilty and sent to a detention facility, and details of the fight gradually unfold, interspersed between his experiences in prison. We also get glimpses into the experiences of some of the other boys with him, and we see a lot of the ways in which all of the boys in this detention center have basically been abandoned to the system. 

The one bright spot for Amal as he grapples with fear, hopelessness, and despair in the face of violent, racist guards, an educational program that is vastly inadequate, and very little support aside from his mother's visits, is a poetry class led by an outside volunteer. The class, basically a reward for good behavior, is one of his only connections to his life outside of prison and is a vital outlet, a place for him to use his words to remind himself of his humanity. As a volunteer-run class, though, the poetry group is not a guaranteed offering, even though without it many of the kids who attend are losing one of their only sources for a healthy outlet. What will happen to Amal and the other boys if they lose the class, and with it their connection to the one person inside the detention center who treats them like human beings?

This book may be fiction, but it was inspired by Yusef Salaam's real life experience as one of the exonerated five, and we all know that Yusef and his friends are far from the only people living in the US to have been wrongfully imprisoned (or imprisoned for bullshit reasons). Amal's story is a heartbreaking reminder not only of how the United States' decision to favor punitive action over restorative justice is failing a majority of black and brown Americans, but also of how our refusal as white people to confront our implicit biases, unlearn the white supremacist bullshit we have grown up steeped in, and use our privilege for good is propping up the rampant racism in our country.

Dear Justyce - Nic Stone

 My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Shortly after teenager Quan enters a not guilty plea for the shooting death of a police officer, he is placed in a holding cell to await trial. Through a series of flashbacks and letters to Justyce, the protagonist of Dear Martin, Quan's story unravels.

From a troubled childhood and bad timing to a coerced confession and prejudiced police work, Nic Stone's newest novel takes an unflinching look at the flawed practices and ideologies that discriminate against African American boys and minorities in the American justice system."

Nic Stone's author note says it all when she says the hardest thing about telling this story was "knowing the most fictional part is the support Quan receives." The entire time I read this, all I could think about was how different life would be for countless young people in the United States if they had a support system. Even Quan, although he connects with a solid support system while awaiting trial, could have gone down a completely different path if he had that kind of support earlier on. (Spoiler incoming)

There were big things that went wrong for Quan, but there were so many tiny ways society let him down, too. Imagine, for instance, if when Quan's math teacher went on maternity leave, the substitute who replaced her was as supportive as she had been instead of being actively the opposite. How different could things have been? This book shines a light on so many of the ways we as a society have let each other down. It shines a light on our broken criminal injustice system, as Justyce refers to it, and how badly it needs to be improved.

Dear Martin - Nic Stone

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone joins industry giants Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers as she boldly tackles American race relations in this stunning debut.

Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack."

I'm getting very behind in writing reviews, so disclaimer: they're gonna be short and sweet until I get caught up.

I read this the weekend that Childish Gambino's "This is America" music video came out, so I got to the most intense part of this book and watched the music video within an hour or so of each other. Fuuuuuuuuck. Can't get either one out of my head. After things went down during Justyce and Manny's car ride, I felt viscerally angry when stories on the news came out trying to paint Justyce as a thug and when the defense attorney in the police officer's trial brought up things unrelated to the shooting, trying to make it sound like Manny deserved what he got. Excellent job, Nic Stone, on writing a book that makes the reader feel so fired up. Justyce's emotions really came through, and the injustice going on throughout the book made me furious. The only downside I found listening to the audiobook, and the reason I only gave it four stars, is that format of the book didn't always lend itself to being read aloud. There were points where the story felt stilted or abrupt, and I wonder if that was because of the format. Definitely planning to read the physical book and see if it flows a little better...which in all honesty is not a downside. It was an excellent book, and I'm looking forward to reading it again and hopefully bumping this review up to a five-star.

Monster - Walter Dean Myers

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial for murder. A Harlem drugstore owner was shot and killed in his store, and the word is that Steve served as the lookout.

Guilty or innocent, Steve becomes a pawn in the hands of "the system," cluttered with cynical authority figures and unscrupulous inmates, who will turn in anyone to shorten their own sentences. For the first time, Steve is forced to think about who he is as he faces prison, where he may spend all the tomorrows of his life.

As a way of coping with the horrific events that entangle him, Steve, an amateur filmmaker, decides to transcribe his trial into a script, just like in the movies. He writes it all down, scene by scene, the story of how his whole life was turned around in an instant. But despite his efforts, reality is blurred and his vision obscured until he can no longer tell who he is or what is the truth. This compelling novel is Walter Dean Myers's writing at its best."

This book has been on my to-read list for quite some time, and now that I've read it, I don't know why I waited so long! Not only was it fantastic, it was also shockingly short, so....super fast read. I listened to the audiobook, and I thought the narrator did an incredible job of portraying Steve's fear, confusion, and uncertainty. It tugged at my heartstrings, especially the way he reacted to being called a monster, wondering what choices he was supposed to have made that had led him to the point where people viewed him as something so terrible. Also, even knowing how ludicrously unfair the justice system can be to people of color, it was mind-blowing to me that the prosecutor was so intent on busting a teenage kid for allegedly "checking the coast was clear" that she was willing to make a deal with one of the people who admitted to being directly involved with the robbery and part of the reason someone ended up dying. Like...what?! Why? He's a teenage kid, for fuck's sake. You'd really rather put him in jail than one of the people who robbed the place and caused an innocent man's death? That made me so mad...which was kind of the point of the book, so good job, Walter Dean Myers. If you're looking for a book that examines racism and prejudice in the justice system, this one is a must-read. And like I said...super short. So there's really no excuse to pass it by.

The 57 Bus - Dashka Slater

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"One teenager in a skirt. 
One teenager with a lighter.
One moment that changes both of their lives forever.

If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight."

As you can probably tell from that description, The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater is not a light read. It's a book I think everyone should pick up, though, because holy shit, will it make you think.

The book starts off with the bare facts. Sasha, an agender teen wearing a white skirt, was sleeping on the 57 bus when Richard took out a lighter and lit their skirt on fire. Pretty cut and dry, right? The bus had video cameras...there isn't much ambiguity in a case where one teenager is caught on film lighting another on fire. Until you get into the details, that is. Is Richard really what he was painted to be--a bigoted, homophobic teenager who deserved to be charged as an adult for multiple hate crimes? Or was there more to this horrible act than meets the eye? The 57 Bus will challenge your assumptions and your opinions regarding the justice system in the United States. It will make you think about how we handle young people who commit crimes. And it should.