Agent: Rena Rossner, the Deborah Harris Agency. Stone deftly explores systemic oppression and interrogates the notion of justice, particularly in how Black boys are often treated as adults and lost in the school-to-prison pipeline. Although the narrative’s letters, snapshots, flashbacks, and the midpoint addition of a second narrator may muddle the timeline, Quan’s unflinching honesty and vulnerability make him a protagonist readers will unequivocally empathize with. Through Quan’s eyes, readers experience the hopelessness and solitude that have consumed his life since the traumatic arrest of his father when he was 11. After a hopeful revelation, Justyce enlists the help of his friend Jared Christensen his girlfriend, Sarah-Jane Friedman and SJ’s attorney mother to find a way to free Quan. Through a series of letters to his friend, Yale pre-law student Justyce McAllister, Quan recounts his abusive home life and the desperate decisions that ultimately led to his arrest. Both of these novels do a lot of great work exposing the reality of racism in modern society, this one in particular focusing on systemic racism in the American justice system. Atlanta 17-year-old Vernell LaQuan Banks Jr., called “Quan,” finds himself in the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center after being coerced into confessing to the murder of a cop. After the exceptional novel which is 'Dear Martin', Nic Stone brings another gut punch with the incredible sequel 'Dear Justyce'. Stone tackles the American juvenile justice system and its unjust persecution of Black boys in this gritty, powerful sequel to Dear Martin.
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