Early this month, I read Angie Thomas’s stunning debut, The Hate U Give. When I discovered the infamous novel had a prequel–Concrete Rose–I just had to check it out.

Concrete Rose is the contemporary prequel novel of Maverick Carter, set seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give. Here, Mav is seventeen, and in the thick of it. He’s tied up in gangs and dealing for the King Lords–just like his father. But it’s the best protection he knows. With his father in prison, and his mother hard at work to provide for them, he just wants to help his mom however he can. And life’s not so bad, anyways. He’s got his girl, Lisa, and a cousin who’s always got his back. Mav’s doing fine.

Until Mav finds out one wayward night led to him becoming a father.

Mav’s world is flipped upside down. Now he’s got a kid, a whole baby boy to take care of, on top of school, his mom, and his girl–who, by the way, isn’t so happy about this kid of his. How can he be here for them, and keep his kid safe while he’s mixed up selling stuff on the streets? It just won’t work. So when he’s offered a chance to go straight, he takes it.

But when King Lord blood runs through your veins, you can’t just walk away. Unless you wanna end up dead. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the death of a loved on. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means, to be a man.

Highlights

Oh my goodness, again, we get a full taste of Angie Thomas’s masterful character dynamics. It was a real joy to come back to her writing. She brings each character to life, with her passionate voice, humor, and deep emotions. You can always tell she has history with the things she writes about–she knows this is fiction, but it’s not. Everything in her stories is so real, for so many people in America and past America. And it makes the stories so impactful.

Concrete Rose centers around Maverick caring for his son, Seven (fans of The Hate U Give will recognize this, it was so fun to read these beginnings.) and Thomas sums up first time parent life perfectly. As an older sister, I remember what it’s like to have a new born baby around the house. It’s full of firsts–feeding, learning how to change a diaper, that dreadful moment of burping a baby without a burp cloth–a mistake you make once, and never again. And it’s also really hard. The sleepless nights, the constant money going straight from your hands to diapers, food, clothes, everything. Just imagine doing it at seventeen.

Thomas portrays this wonderfully, through humor and stunning, realistic voice. And the way she captures the beauty of it all–yes, it’s a lot to deal with a child, but it’s also your child. A kid with your eyes, your genes, your blood and being.

“I hadn’t realized Li’l Man stopped crying. He suck the bottle and grip my shirt, staring up at me.

I look at him. I mean look at him. Yeah, I see me–ain’t’ no denying he mine. More than that, I see my son.

My heart balloon in my chest.

“Hey, man.” For some reason this feel like I’m meeting him for the first time. “Hey.” – Maverick Carter, Concrete Rose, pp. 29

Of course, I have to return to the stunning cast of characters. There’s so much range. We have Maverick, the struggling but determined young father. Iesha, Seven’s mom, who’s not so interested in the dealing with a kid stuff. Lisa, his not-so-happy, “bougie” girlfriend. His mother–hard-working and no nonsense, who just wants better for her son. And so many more. Thomas crafts an entire neighborhood of colorful characters. Everyone has a story, everyone has a voice, everyone has a struggle. You could pick each one up and point them out in someone in real life, and I really feel like that’s one of Thomas’s biggest writing strengths.

And Thomas is never afraid to have emotion and tackle the tough stuff in her novels. While I don’t think this novel impacted me as deeply as The Hate U Give did, it was still stunning. She shows Black men with emotion, Black men struggling and loving and crying and talking and growing. It’s something so often skewed in media, that it’s wrong–for Black men to portray anything other than anger–but she defies that stereotype, full force. It’s amazing.

“Son, one of the biggest lies ever told is that Black men don’t feel emotions. Guess it’s easier to not see us as human when you think we’re heartless. Fact of the matter is, we feel things. Hurt, pain, sadness, all of it. We got a right to show them feelings as much as anybody else.” – Mr Wyatt, Concrete Rose, pp. 163-164

Critiques

While I adore the writing voice and cast here, there were a few things I didn’t love. Concrete Rose was definitely more of a prequel, and wasn’t nearly as satisfying as The Hate U Give. The ending, while sweet, left me unsatisfied. There was a lot of story to be continued, and threads that hadn’t been wrapped up. On one hand, it makes sense. Much of the “loose ends” in Concrete Rose are covered in The Hate U Give. But I will wanted the story. I’m a sucker for stories that give us everything, and that just didn’t happen in this novel. It felt more like a slice-of-life. Not bad, but I think I need to start looking out for those before I get into a novel, because I’m never satisfied with slice-of-life endings.

Content Warnings

Concrete Rose is definitely a young adult novel. Similarly to The Hate U Give, there’s a lot of cursing. Use of the s-word, the f-word, the a-word, the n-word, the b-word, h-ll, d-mn, the Lord’s name in vain.

There’s also a lot of talk of condoms and the consequences of unprotected sex. Thomas never goes into graphic detail–it’s just a theme of the novel, with young pregnancy and all.

There’s also a mild sexual scene, but Thomas never grosses us out with the details. No graphics or anything. It’s all done very tastefully, and fades to black–it’s just implied what they’ve done.

There’s a bisexual couple. There’s also a couple violent scenes, containing death, blood, fighting, and/or gunshots.

“Living your life based off what other people think–“

“Ain’t living at all.” – Pops, Maverick Carter, Concrete Rose, pp. 44

Conclusion

Overall, Concrete Rose is a beautiful story of parental and family love, young relationships, and learning to deal with the harshness of life. There’s some violence, quite a bit of cursing, and sexual matters are a theme of the story. But Thomas didn’t use all the cursing and matters for nothing. She’s shown us a real story, of something that happens to young kids every day. It’s something more people need to talk about–and Thomas certainly has.

I rate Concrete Rose 3/5 stars, just because I wasn’t satisfied with the ending. I recommend for young parents/older teens, and anyone who enjoyed Angie Thomas’s dynamic character voice and deep concepts.