We return to Garden Heights and see where it all began for Starr Carter. We review Concrete Rose.
Concrete Rose – the blurb
With his King Lord dad in prison and his mom working two jobs, seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter helps the only way he knows how: slinging drugs. Life’s not perfect, but he’s got everything under control. Until he finds out he’s a father…
Suddenly it’s not so easy to deal drugs and finish school with a baby dependent on him for everything. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. But when King Lord blood runs through your veins, you don’t get to just walk away.
Making of the man
I loved The Hate U Give when I read it last year so was very excited to get my hands on a copy of Concrete Rose, the prequel. Here we meet Starr Carter’s father. 17 years old, daddy in prison and about to find out he is a father. Race was up front and central in T.H.U.G, with Concrete Rose it’s still very present, but in a way that is less to do with police and Black Lives Matter. It’s more about the decisions that lead to joining a gang, dealing drugs or shooting someone. As much as T.H.U.G was a coming of age novel so is Concrete Rose. Maverick is on the cusp of something, a precipice where he could fall either way. He has people around him who try to steer him the right way but ultimately it is up to him what type of man he becomes.
Nothing glamorous here
Angie Thomas is very clever in that she doesn’t make too many judgements on gang life. It is what it is, it’s a fact of life for certain people. She doesn’t glamorise it, nor does she demonise it. Dre, Maverick’s cousin, is a King Lord, yet a pretty decent cousin, father and boyfriend. It would be so easy to paint characters as good or bad but even Iesha who ups and leaves her son first chance is written with some understanding – how hard it is to raise a child with no help and no money.
I really loved the fact the book dealt with being a teenage dad. An angle that has often been shied away from in teen books. Mav more than steps up to the plate but Thomas again shows how damn hard it is!
From a Rose to a THUG
It was genuinely interesting to see the characters we knew from T.H.U.G emerge. As Starr questions her decisions in life so does her father. You know from the outset that Maverick ends up on the right path but you are still unsure how and worry for him. I genuinely didn’t know which way it was going to go at certain parts despite already knowing the ending! There were some really good characters (in both books) and it would make one hell of a movie….
The book is so evocative and has such a strong sense of identity. It’s very real and VERY worth a read. T.H.U.G will always hold a special place for me, but Concrete Rose is just as worthy.
