Concrete Rose

Concrete Rose is a young adult novel by the American writer Angie Thomas, published in January 2021 by Balzer + Bray.

Maverick Carter is seventeen and has a clear idea of what a man is supposed to do, which is to take care of his family. His father is in prison, his mother works two jobs, and the money that helps most comes from dealing for the King Lords, the gang his father belonged to before him. The novel follows the summer in which Mav learns he has a baby son named Seven, and has to work out how to finish school, raise a child and stay loyal to people who measure loyalty in violence. When he is offered a way out of dealing, taking it turns out to be harder than refusing it.

Thomas writes in the first person and keeps the narration inside Maverick's own reasoning about what he owes the people around him, so the reader sees why his decisions are costly rather than being told how to judge them.