Genre: Realistic Fiction
After spending two months in a juvenile detention center for something he was innocent of, Andre Jackson returns home to find that nothing is the same as he left it. His family is treating him differently, especially his dad who is always so busy at his bookstore that he didn’t even come home to have dinner with Andre the first night he was home. His best friend has mysteriously run away, but no one seems to know where he is including his sister, Sierra, which Andre finds suspicious. His parole officer seems to be on his side, but there is another parole officer who definitely has it out for him and is frequently tracking him when he has no business watching him. Andre just assumed that everyone would who knows and loves him would know he would never have anything to do with any robbery, but he’s surprised to find that people seem unsure and wary of him now that he’s back. To make matters worse, he arrives home just in time for the onset of Covid 19 and that causes several problems as his family is one of the first to get it and his mom is a hospital nurse. Plus, Covid keeps him from reentering school, which is desperately wants to do. As they struggle through this terrible pandemic, Andre does spend some time with Sierra and her adoptive family that lives across the street. Sierra’s adoptive father has been especially helpful with Andre’s situation and even helped provide a lawyer for him. However, Andre suspects he knows more about his best friend’s disappearance and isn’t saying a word. Who can Andre trust? Will his family make it through the pandemic and everything that comes along with it? Will that parole officer try to pin more robberies on him and send him back to jail?
This book really makes the reader feel like they are in Andre’s shoes. It is written so that you can feel his frustration with his situation, his concern over his missing friend, his sadness over what Covid is doing to his family, and his mixed emotions toward the girl next door. It’s easy to identify with Andre’s emotions because everyone reading this now has experience with the pandemic and how that changed everything, but then you throw on everything else Andre is dealing with and it’s a very powerful narrative. The ending is both exciting and satisfying as Andre tries to find out what happened to his friend and clear his name. The ending is also believable in that not everything ends perfectly for everyone. The author did a fantastic job of conveying the many thoughts and feelings of a young person going through a very stressful time. Highly Recommended.
Young Adult Book Reviews 