Angie Thomas’ first novel, The Hate U Give, was
nothing short of groundbreaking. After her sophomore novel, On the Come Up,
Thomas decided to return to something a little more familiar to readers.
The first thing fans heard about Angie Thomas’ junior
novel was that this was a character we already knew in her “Garden Heights”
universe, where The Hate U Give and On The Come Up are set.
Fans went into a frenzy.
Through Twitter, followers of the author soon learned
the protagonist’s name: Maverick Carter, the father of Starr Carter who was the
protagonist of The Hate U Give. Concrete Rose is a prequel set
seventeen years before the award-winning The Hate U Give.
Although it’s a prequel, it is not at all necessary to
read The Hate U Give before Concrete Rose. It felt so exciting to
return to the Carter family, but if Concrete Rose is your first Angie
Thomas novel the only thing that you would miss are character cameos like
Maverick who was in The Hate U Give as an adult. As a returning reader
to Thomas’ novels, it is exciting to see the backstory of Mav, which was
briefly alluded to in The Hate U Give. Not much of Mav’s teenage years
are discussed in The Hate U Give. From what I recall, what is discussed
is that his oldest child, Seven, has a different mother than the rest of his
siblings, which is also discussed in Concrete Rose, and The Hate U
Give also mentions that Mav was incarcerated sometime between Concrete
Rose and The Hate U Give when his children were young.
Going into the novel, I actually couldn’t recall many details
of Mav in The Hate U Give besides the two points I detailed, and honestly
I didn’t need to recall that is it is part of what the book is about. The
Hate U Give in this case serves to give backstory for Mav.
Thomas’ newest novel Concrete Rose follows
seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter who is growing up in Garden Heights as the
man of the house while his father is incarcerated. Maverick, or Mav, has to
juggle school with bringing in money for his family through dealing drugs for
the infamous King Lord gang.
However, when he learns he is the father of a baby,
his whole life is turned around.
One thing I wanted to note is Mav’s emotions
throughout the novel, and how he expresses them. After losing a beloved family
member, Dre, to gang violence, Mav is understandably devastated, but struggles
to express himself, especially around his family:
“Men ain’t supposed to cry. We supposed to
be strong enough to carry our boulders and everybody else’s…Ain’t got no time
to grieve” (Thomas, 120-121), and later, he says “I can’t sit around crying
about Dre. I gotta be a man” (Thomas, 163).
Manhood, especially Black manhood is a prominent theme
in the novel.
Black children or teenagers are often viewed as much
older, or at least given the responsibilities of someone much older, and for
Mav, he truly has to take the role of an adult and a father, when he should
just have to worry about his schooling or prom, but instead he can barely even
focus on school.
Although set more than twenty years ago, the struggles
of Mav are ones that continue even today.
This seventeen-year-old is dealing with gang violence,
having a baby, looking after his grieving family, and trying to financially
make ends meet among so many other things, and he feels like he can’t even show
his emotions. He has to put on a show of “being a man” but this idea is not
often depicted as congruent with crying or showing sadness. By showing this
conflict, Thomas subtly points to the unique pressure that Mav is put under as
a young Black man.
Cleyvis Natera excellently articulates the pressure of
manhood in Mav’s life in a review from Time Magazine:
“Manhood becomes the confining praxis toward resolution: Is he
a man? How big of a man? How brave of a man? We come to understand that loss
ushers Maverick to redefine himself beyond the confines of gender norms: he
must see himself not as doomed to the legacy of his father’s actions, but as a
parent and a human being focused on the future.”(Natera, 2021)
With Mav’s father’s incarceration, Mav is working to
define his own manhood while also working on surviving. Mav does what he
believes is necessary to survive, having to grow up even more than others his
age.
What I think is incredibly important is how the
pressures Mav is put under leads him to drug dealing. Mav sells drugs with
King, an infamous drug dealer in the King Lord gang, to make a little bit more
money for his family and his new baby. At no point though is Mav demonized for
this decision, which I think is not only a fresh viewpoint on a black teenager
dealing drugs, but also a critical viewpoint to look at why the person made the
decision to deal drugs, and ultimately how his society let him down, instead of
looking at him negatively for it.
Mav is put under pressure that have existed for other
Black men, and Thomas acknowledges the balance she had to achieve while writing
between realism and falling into a stereotype that has been associated with
Black men in an interview with Time Magazine:
“How do I fight against that [stereotypes]? And for
me, it was again about looking at the person, looking at the why - because
that's how you connect people who may not even identify with Maverick. You may
not live in a neighborhood where there are gangs, but you can understand
wanting to be protected. You may not have a parent who's incarcerated, but you
can understand wanting to help your family out financially. These are all human
emotions.” (Natera, 2021)
As Thomas states, at the heart of this novel is pure,
raw emotion. She fights these potential stereotypes by grounding the characters
in dynamic, realistic actions and words that can be related to. Mav has real
intense emotions because Mav represents just one real Black man, not a
stereotype.
Although Mav believes he can’t cry at first, his boss,
Mr. Wyatt, emphasizes the importance of emotions:
“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” (Thomas, 164).
Almost halfway through the novel here, Mav cries for
the first time, and I felt some sort of weight off my shoulders as he cried. I
spent 160 pages watching this character build up a wall to separate a part of
himself from the people who love him, and then he becomes brave enough to knock
it down and show his grief and anxiety.
Mav is constantly trying to fit into this role of a Black
man that society has created, when he finally learns that Black men are the
only ones who should be defining the role of a Black man. After pages and pages
of feeling out of control, he learns he can define himself and his identity.
Concrete Rose is
a beautiful portrait of a Black man growing up in America and learning to
define himself, instead of letting the world define him. This is one of those
books that I think everyone should read. Although it is marketed as a YA novel,
Angie Thomas is also read and loved by adults, and I feel like adolescent and
adult readers alike would love and benefit from this book.
Although a young adult novel, I feel that young adults
are not the only readers who could benefit from this novel, and this novel
could both provide an example of the Black experience to non-Black readers,
while also providing a sense of familiarity or understanding for Black readers.
I commend Angie Thomas for consistently coming out
with both relevant and yet timeless young adult novels, and I highly recommend
you give Concrete Rose a read.
-SS
Works Cited:
Natera, Cleyvis.
“Https://Time.com/5928689/Concrete-Rose-Review-Angie-Thomas/.” Time, 12
Jan. 2021, time.com/5928689/concrete-rose-review-angie-thomas/.
Thomas, Angie. Concrete
Rose. HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.
Photos from Goodreads.com
