6.30.2017

just finished reading

From the publisher:
Some bodies won’t stay buried. Some stories need to be told.

When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family’s property, she has no idea that investigating the brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the past, the present, and herself.

One hundred years earlier, a single violent encounter propels seventeen-year-old Will Tillman into a racial firestorm. In a country rife with violence against blacks and a hometown segregated by Jim Crow, Will must make hard choices on a painful journey towards self discovery and face his inner demons in order to do what’s right the night Tulsa burns.

The two narrative threads in this story are equally compelling. And the cast of characters are diverse without being cliches. I was afraid this would be a book about whiny middle-class teenagers faced with racial injustice but it's a well-crafted historical mystery. Racial tensions from the Jim Crow 1920s are mirrored in contemporary racial tensions. And, in all honesty, I didn't know about the history of the Tulsa race riots. Both narrators' story arcs show resilience and growth.

It's timely without being preachy.

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