I work in a school with a high Muslim population, I am looking to purchase this title for my library. This was a enlightening look into the struggles of our young people.

Khan-Cullors pens a memoir that is reflective and brutally honest, while she also ensures that readers understand the underlying historical, social and political systems that create much of the trauma that is experienced by Black people in the United States. Such an important book for all teens to read!

This book is a powerful memoir that gives voice to the origins of Black Lives Matter, not just the movement, but the commitment to activism of Patrisse Khan-Cullors, one of its founders. She grew up with an all-to0-familiar close in view of police harassment of people of color and the lack of support infrastructure for the mentally ill and their families. The men in her life--her brother, her father, her stepfather--come and go, their connection severed by addiction, unemployment, schizophrenia, incarceration in a cycle perpetuated by a system that resists much needed change. While this is not an appropriate purchase for my middle school library, I would consider it for readers at a high school level who want to understand more about how movements, and activists are created.

For the content alone, I would give this book five stars. Khan-Cullors describes a number of incidents throughout her childhood, teen years, and adulthood that led to her activist work and co-founding Black Lives Matter. This content includes experiencing her father and brother go to prison multiple times; religion, especially her mother's religion and her own thoughts about it; being Queer; her relationships; and more. The recollection of her brother Monte's experience in prison particularly stood out to me. He was diagnosed with a mental illness and drugged, his diagnosis was not shared with him or his family upon his release, and when they tried to get emergency medical care for him after his release it was refused because he was a felon. This, and other stories, are incredibly important for people to know about.

However, I really struggled with the writing style of this book. The book is primarily written in present tense, which I think is really strange for a memoir, especially since it was not always linear. There were occasional instances of past tense, but there didn't seem to be a clear reason why these were included when the book was mostly present tense. Since I haven't read the original (adult) edition, I wasn't sure if this was changed for the YA edition, but an except I found of the original on the publisher's website showed that both were written in present tense. I really think I would have had a better reading experience if the book were written in past tense - it would make sense, since the book, as a memoir, takes place in the past.

Whenever I see a Young Reader's edition, I wonder why it needed to be written. What I mean by that is, does this book exist so that teens are more likely to pick it up than an adult copy, because the original edition is considered too dense and difficult to read for younger readers, or because the publishers saw an opportunity to market to another age range, thus selling more books? There are some excellent Young Reader's editions out there (Jason Reynolds' recent "remix" of Stamped comes to mind as one which was specifically written with teens in mind, instead of just dumbed down). Again, I haven't read the original, so I can't speak to the changes that were made here. However, looking again at the excerpt of the first chapter of the original, it was incredibly similar to the YA edition. The YA edition had some minor additions but the content was generally the same. If a teen could read this edition, they could definitely read the original.

I'm giving this four stars because I am considering this a review of the book, not as a YA edition in particular. However, I would aim most teens toward just reading the original. I am really open to having my mind changed, but I don't feel like this edition needs to exist. I do hope it gets this content into the hands of younger readers who may not have picked up the adult edition.

I feel like I need to read the original "adult" version of this book in order to more honestly review this "YA" edition. I honestly just don't see how this speaks specifically to young adults (aside from the list of discussion questions at the end of each chapter...which, in my experience, teens tend to skip over and teachers don't use in classrooms). What's "different" about this content that makes it YA? What, if anything, is in the original that may be too "adult" for a YA reader? Teens can generally handle reading adult books, so there's no need to re-write a book unless there's a specific difference in the way the book reaches out to its intended audience. I'm just not seeing how this book does that.

The book itself was an uneven read for me. The beginning 1/3 is a bit repetitive: there are whole phrases - even sentences - that get repeated more than once in reference to certain events or in family members. It's as if there are sections that got moved around during the editing process, but without the editor going back to remove those passages from their original locations. But then the book really picks up steam as Patrisse enters high school, and the writing is on solid ground by the time she enters adulthood and describes the events and experiences leading up to founding Black Lives Matter,

Overall, it's an important story and Patrisse has a compelling voice. I'm still just having a hard time envisioning the intended audience (YA) feeling that the book was intended for them.