Zay must now finish his junior year at Broadlawn Alternative School, which is located hours away. The day he finds out he has to move in with his aunt and uncle (who live near Broadlawn), his white father is released from prison. Zay isn\u2019t happy about Keith\u2019s release; he feels betrayed by Ma for not telling him that Pops was getting out, and he isn\u2019t sure how to connect with his pops, who\u2019s been like \u201can imaginary friend\u201d whom he\u2019s outgrown over the past 12 years. Hunter deftly depicts the mental and emotional complexities incarceration causes for both the newly released and their family members. Despite Zay\u2019s reluctance to leave home, the move turns out to be positive. He quickly bonds with his uncle, learns more about his parents, befriends Kenny (who\u2019s in his second stint at Broadlawn), and falls hard and fast for Feven, a girl who\u2019s new to the area and is originally from Eritrea. The voices of the three young people are outstanding; they each navigate significant emotional landscapes\u2014Kenny faces the school-to-prison pipeline; Feven reckons with the pressures of immigration; and Xavier deals with the impact of generational trauma. The adults are notably also fully developed characters.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zay must now finish his junior year at Broadlawn Alternative School, which is located hours away. The day he finds out he has to move in with his aunt and uncle (who live near Broadlawn), his white father is released from prison. Zay isn\u2019t happy about Keith\u2019s release; he feels betrayed by Ma for not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}