This novel had my blood boiling. It was a great book about how insidious racism truly is. How even the most subtle digs, which are often ignored, or overlooked, can create ripples that eventually explode. The adults in this story push so much aside, allow so much to go unchecked or to continue on, which only widens the divide between Black and white students. Even the most well meaning adults, like Mrs. Morgan, are wrong in how they approach the situation or allow things to slide that should be directly called out and criticized. Madison truly had no one in her corner, because even when the other Black students found out she was biracial they were angry at her for lying and trying to pass for white. The only one who truly listened, saw her pain, and saw why she hid, or at least suspected she hid because of abuse at home by her white religious father, was Kenny. At first he tries to ignore Maddy, like he does the other Black students. He just wants to focus on his football career and not stirring anything up. But, when he begins to get to know Maddy he sees how truly similar they are. Hiding or minimizing their identities in order to fit into white society, into a community that hates them. It was so heartbreaking, but so beautiful that they found each other and could finally feel happiness and be their true selves. I loved how this story was told. Through several different mediums you travel back and forth from now to the events of what lead up to and prom night. The podcast was especially well done, on audio it really popped. And truly, the real monster of his horror novel was not Maddy, but the racism that was allowed to grow and fester. It was at the end that the real message was finally conveyed in an honest and thought provoking way. This book was an incredible retelling of Carrie, by Stephen King. It takes an already fraught story and adds the element of racism, both blatant and subtle. Maddy and Kenny are such sympathetic characters and you wish that those around them would have been better, would have worked harder, changed, learned and grown, but in this instance racism is too large a monster to defeat. It is very hard to like anyone else in this story, because most of the people mentioned are clearly racist and unwilling to learn or change. Jules is especially awful in her obliviousness to her very obvious racism. The worst part is that no one really seems to learn anything from the events, racism still runs rampant and those left never really face consequences for what happened, Maddy is the only one who is blamed for the events of that fateful night. Highly recommend reading this book!
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