To me, Maverick Carter was one of the most enigmatic and beautiful characters in The Hate U Give. When I saw that Concrete Rose would be his story, I could not have been more excited. Angie Thomas did not disappoint in this prequel to The Hate U Give. This is an important story, especially for those who do not know the true story of Black America. I hope that Angie Thomas never stops writing books like this.

The moment in THUG when Maverick is harassed and humiliated by the police in front of his children and community broke me and simultaneously reminded me of the power of representation. I saw my dad, my brother, and all of the Black men who are routinely abused by a system designed to serve and protect.

When Thomas announced ROSE, I was excited that another complex Black male protagonist was coming into the word and I was in no way disappointed. The novel takes us through Maverick's story and, although we know where he ends up, the scene in THUG mentioned above is all the more poignant when we learn how hard he fights to become the man, father, and leader his family and community need. I love that this isn't a rags to riches story: Maverick is who he is through and through. I think my students will love this prequel because it gives us flawed and noble hero. Thomas did it again!

I enjoyed this, though not quite as much as The Hate U Give or On the Come Up. The second half gave me strong Long Way Down vibes. With both On the Come Up and this, Thomas has proved that she's really great at writing complex protagonists.

Maverick thinks he has everything under control. He has a great girlfriend, he is about to start his senior year of high school, and he does a little side dealing to make some extra cash. His life begins to unravel when he finds out that a one-time hookup has made him a father. Now that Mav has a baby that depends on him, he decides to stop selling drugs, finish school, and raise his son. He quickly finds out that it isn’t easy to do any of those things, but he wants to prove everyone wrong. It isn’t easy being a young black man in Garden Heights and Mav must determine who he wants to be.

Concrete Rose is the prequel story to The Hate U Give. Thomas has taken readers back seventeen years before the events of the first book to give background and insight into the father we later see supporting his daughter. Even though this is a prequel book, it can be read before or after The Hate U Give. The family drama and hard choices portrayed make this coming of age story a great read for all readers. I’m sure everyone who loved The Hate U Give will quickly devour Concrete Rose.

4 stars

Who doesn't get nervous when they see that a great novel is getting a prequel or a sequel...? Set your fears aside!

This prequel to _The Hate U Give_ features Maverick (Star's dad, for those who know and love the aforementioned title) primarily in his senior year of high school. He is facing a lot of barriers: becoming a dad at a young age, being surrounded by gang violence, and connecting with a cast of important people in his life, including his incarcerated father. It's not an easy road for Maverick, and he makes some choices that make this road even more difficult to navigate, but his voice is authentic and clear, and it is impossible to lack empathy - or at least sympathy - as he travels and learns.

This is a satisfying sequel, and while it has a very different tone from its predecessor (in time not order), it's a great book all on its own. Recommended for fans of _THUG_ and for newcomers alike!

From the author of The Hate U Give and On the come Up. Angie Thomas writes an excellent prequel to The Hate You Give, telling the story of Maverick and the beginnings of his story with Lisa. So very good I didn’t want it to stop, I can’t say “end” ‘cause it leads to The Hate You Give. Maverick’s story is not a “coming of age” story but a “coming a man” story. The end of Chapter 13 - whew!

All kids have a coming of age moment, and they all deserve to have heir story told. Here’s one that is not about getting the girl (okay, it’s a little about that) or getting into the right college, but it is about a kid finding himself and his way. This book shows the child inside the troubled kid and we root for him to grow miraculously up from of his hard circumstances, his less-than-ideal choices made when he couldn’t see all of his options - and blossom.

I was beyond excited to get approved for an advanced copy of Angie Thomas’ newest book, and I was not left disappointed! I have been a huge fan of all of her books, and will be a fan for life! Here are my thoughts on her most recent:

**Angie Thomas will hands down be one of the most iconic writers of our time, and her writing will be popular for decades to come. Her strong voice captures so many issues of today and recent history, and her books will be used to inform many discussions among friends, classrooms, and book clubs.
**Thomas is a master at character development and exploring the many facets that make people who they are. We are not all good or all bad, and Thomas is able to expertly create those nuances in her characters, even her secondary characters.
**I so love Mav and his mom. Their relationship warmed my heart through its ups and downs. I also really appreciated the relationship between Mav and Mr. Lewis. All kids could benefit from having a mentor like him!
**As an educator, we always teach kids about writing with voice, and Thomas has such a strong voice in her writing. I would recommend using her books as an example of creating a strong voice.
**I love that tough issues are tackled. Life is messy, and teens need to know that they can come through on the other side of the mess. Unexpected things can happen, but life moves forward and you keep persevering and striving to be your best.
**Full disclosure – I read so extensively that my memory for books is not great. There were elements of this book that were very familiar as I was reading them, and I’m sure that is because there is overlap with The Hate U Give (but having been a few years since I read that book, my memory for the details was fuzzy). I might recommend picking up THUG before reading Concrete Rose if you are like me.
**I was a bit disappointed in the ending. There were some pretty significant loose ends that were not wrapped up. But……considering the bullet point above, maybe they are addressed at the beginning of THUG? Regardless, I was left wanting more resolution at the end of this one.

Overall, I highly recommend this read and encourage you to preorder it! You will not be disappointed!

It’s everything you wanted to know about Maverick & Garden Heights & King Lords... but it’s not just backstory. It’s Maverick’s story. It’s black magic, black power, and black love. It’s profound story telling and masterful exploration of humanity in Angie Thomas’s skilled hands. You don’t have to have read any of her other works to read this one. It stands alone on its own merit.

You may remember Maverick Carter as the father of Starr Carter in the breakout hit novel, The Hate U Give. With Concrete Rose, author Angie Thomas takes us back to Garden Heights in a prequel/origin story centered around Mav.

Readers will meet Mav as a young adult and witness his struggles with providing for his family. As the son of an infamous drug lord who is now in prison, he's expected to follow down that path in order to keep his mom afloat. But soon, Mav becomes a father himself and it's getting harder and harder to deal drugs, take care of an infant and finish high school. So he takes a job that'll keep him on the straight and narrow - it's not easy, but it's right.

The streets have a way of pulling you back in though, and when a family member is murdered, Mav will have to decide which path is truly his destiny.

Like all of Angie Thomas' books, this was such a good and necessary read. Thomas, who wanted to portray black men more positively in her stories, the character of Maverick is “perfectly imperfect." "It was important to me above all to humanize him because that’s the bare minimum we owe young Black boys. As a writer, the least I could do is to have a fully three-dimensional figure on the page," she said at The New England Independent Booksellers Association virtual conference. Not only does she challenge the stereotypes associated with being black, but she also challenges those surrounding what it's like to be a man. Maverick's character has a tough exterior, but learns it's okay to feel and show emotion.

This book tells the story if Starr’s dad from THUG as a teenager, becoming a dad at a young age while dealing with life as a Black teen in the fictional Garden. Obviously, anyone who has enjoyed Thomas’s other books will enjoy this one, but there are also extra tidbits that made Concrete Rose particularly compelling. First, as someone who grew up in the 90s, I very much enjoyed the cultural references. I also appreciated the depiction of fatherhood, which I don’t often read about no matter the race or class. Highly recommend!

If you loved The Hate U Give you have to read Concrete Rose, the story of Starr's dad, Maverick, as an adolescent. Remember him, the well respected store owner and pillar of the community?
I am so grateful that Angie Thomas told Mav's story and in that story once again challenges our misconceptions of black boyhood in the inner city. Angie sheds light on some serious stereotypes regarding teen pregnancy & fatherhood , gangs & selling drugs , and what it means to be a man. I won't be surprised to see this added to some challenged book lists next year but this is once again an important read for teens and

Powerful prequel to The Hate U Give. We get to know Maverick Carter and Lisa Montgomery when they were teens. The story helps answer some questions readers may have had, such as how is Maverick allowed to leave the gang but still respected and still friends with King? Why did he choose to run a store? How long has that nosy old barbershop guy been in the neighborhood, anyway?

This is good tight writing that presents strong characters, further development of the fictional Garden Heights neighborhood, and a tense, well-constructed conflict that flows believably and inevitably toward its climax. Even though I am also a woman, I think Angie Thomas did an incredible job portraying the journey to manhood of an African American male. It bears some resemblance to those real-life books like the Bluford High series, but it is real literature, beautifully written. Like The Hate U Give, I think anyone of any age should be able to be completely absorbed in the story.

I would recommend it for older teens and up due to lots of drug use, sex, and gun violence. None of this is glorified, though. Mav has sex two times and has two children, basically.

I received an advance reading copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was exactly what I needed this year. It was fantastic!

After reading The Hate U Give, I came into this book thinking I'd know most of what was going to happen. That turned out to not be true. There were surprises and tears for both Maverick and me. Was it fun to have more information on some things than Maverick? Definitely!

It was great reading about all the familiar names and getting a little more background on some of them. At least one of the names brought up caused me to burst into tears...

I don't want to give anything away because I think it's better for people to just know that it's a prequel to The Hate U Give and discover the greatness of it on their own.

I'm still in awe over how great this book is. I can't wait to buy a print copy for my personal collection.

I was so thankful I was approved to read Concrete Rose! Thank you!! Mav’s story was everything I’d hoped it would be... and I’m
Hoping for a second book to fill in the gaps between the end of CR and THUG. Please???

Angie Thomas has done it again. This is the engrossing backstory of The Hate U Give's father character, Maverick Carter. Readers go back to Garden Heights and follow Maverick as he navigates life as a surprise new father, student, and boy being forced to grow up fast. If there is a person left in the world that hasn't read THUG, this book will stand on its own for them. But fans of Thomas's first novel will really become re-emerged in the life of the Carters, and realize how deep Maverick's love for his kids go. This novel is beautiful.

It has been a while since I read The Hate U Give, but I loved it, so I was really looking forward to this. I don't read a lot of books that have exclusively male protagonists, but it was nice to read from the perspective of a character I already knew. This prequel to The Hate U Give focuses on Starr's (from that novel) parents in their own teenage years, just before she is born. Her father, Maverick, is a high school student who finds out right away that he is the father of his friend's girlfriend's baby. After the DNA test, she asks him to take the kid (King, Jr., though Mav renames him Seven), and then she disappears for quite a while. Mav - a member of the local King Lords gang, son of a well-known gang member who is long-term incarcerated, and whose whole inner circle is involved with the gang - has to figure out how to care for his infant son, go to school, try to convince his girlfriend to take him back even though he got someone else pregnant, and try to hold down a regular job. His closest confidante is his cousin Dre, but a tragic event interrupts that. This was pretty heavy, though someone maybe not as heavy as The Hate U Give, perhaps because it is set more than 20 years ago and feels a little more removed from our current crises. I really liked seeing characters who show up later in The Hate U Give as teenagers (and even babies, like Seven and Khalil). A really solid prequel and one I would recommend for any fans of Angie Thomas.

This made my heart sing! I loved learning more about Mav and how he came to be the man he is in THUG.

This is exactly what I wanted it to be and more. I was sucked into Maverick's story from the first page and the only reason I didn't read it in one sitting is because I had to go to bed and go to work. Getting Maverick's (and Lisa and King and Seven and Khalil) backstory was both satisfying and moving. The voice of the book is so compelling and heartbreaking at the same time.

If you're an adult who reads YA and sometimes you wonder "I wish I had a parental backstory to find out why the parent interacts with their kid in this way...", as I find myself wondering more and more, then you'll be all in for this one.

It has been awhile since I’ve read The Hate U Give, but I was immediately sucked back into the world with Concrete Rose. I loved the metaphor of the rose growing out from concrete and reading about Maverick’s life surviving and raising his son. The book definitely sheds light on how difficult it is to abandon the world of dealing and gangs once you are so wrapped up in it and I really felt for his character. This book took me by surprise with many twists and turns with one tragedy after another without sugarcoating any of the hardships. The book takes place in the past and I enjoyed all the references to 90s culture and the appearance of characters that would play a big role in the latter book. I’m interested in rereading The Hate U Give now knowing Maverick’s backstory.