✨✨✨✨✨ (five stars as rated in THREE stars each because this book actually deserves FIFTEEN STARS!)
This book is just extraordinary. It is written as a collection of poems, some of which were penned by Yusef Salaam himself (one of the Exonerated Five) WHILE being held in prison for a crime he did not commit. The pages flow together brilliantly and many are adorned with doodles and drawings to accent the experiences of the protagonist, Amal Shahid. Stories such as this one are imperative in understanding just how broken the Prison Industrial Complex is and why it must be dismantled. I felt so much pain while reading this story but also a profound sense of hope. We have so much opportunity to improve what is a very broken system. But it all starts with listening to the real, lived experiences like that of Amal and Yusef.
Trigger Warnings: racially motivated violence, racist language and references to racist imagery