Concrete Rose

Concrete Rose (2021) is a young adult novel by award-winning author Angie Thomas. It is the prequel to Thomas’s New York Times best-selling young adult novel The Hate U Give and explores the youth of Maverick “Mav” Carter, father of The Hate U Give’s protagonist Starr Carter. A New York Times and Indiebound best seller, Concrete Rose follows Mav as he faces the challenge of bringing up a child on his own while contending with the pressures of gang membership, masculinity, and poverty.

Plot Summary

Seventeen-year-old Maverick “Mav” Carter lives in the impoverished and predominantly Black neighborhood of Garden Heights, or “the Garden.” In many ways, he’s an average teenager. He’s funny, kind, and preoccupied with proving his manliness to his friends. He likes playing basketball, and he loves his girlfriend, Lisa. One big difference sets Mav apart from the average teenager, however: his membership in the powerful King Lords gang, an affiliation that started when he was only 12 years old. With a father who was once an influential King Lords leader and is now incarcerated, Mav needs all the protection he can get from the violence that plagues the Garden.