This was a moving, passionate look at racial injustice and the systemic racism still so rampant in our legal justice system, starting with the police force and moving up from there.

Rus just wants to play football with his best friend, get a scholarship to college, and have a chance to make something of himself. He didn’t want to get drawn into the protests, but when he’s just had enough, after his best friend is wrongfully arrested, he takes a knee. He is conflicted throughout the story between doing what is easy, protecting his future, or doing what he knows is right and taking a stand. Through it all he’s still a teen, hanging out with friends, crushing on a girl, wanting to please his coach, his parents, his teachers.

Marion wants the same things as Rus, and they are both on track to get those football scholarships when he’s arrested for a fight on the football field that he didn’t even start. And the white player who started it is let off the hook. In that moment, his college hopes are destroyed unless he can prove that he did nothing wrong, and in a town with a racist police force and DA, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. He’s devastated, in turns defiant and defeated, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.

Their story drew me in and I was completely invested in Marion & Rus’s fight. And I felt more connected to taking a knee during the anthem, something I had struggled with in the past.

Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book through Net Galley on behalf of the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.