Anyone who has ever been around high school sports knows how heated emotions can be. The same goes for ancestral practices and history. Combine the two and it’s a powder keg of emotion, such as what the author describes all too realistically in this story.

Calls for a Civil War statue removal fall out to a high school football game, leaving one black teen dead. Two high school football players grapple with how to handle this tragedy. The author realistically plots events as would happen in the lives of high school seniors, from their actions and motivations to their thoughts and feelings.

I’ve never read this author, but I was impressed.

SA Fanning writes a realistic concept and thought it worked well overall. The character felt like they were real people and I was engaged with figuring out what happened to them. It shows the racial tension that can happen and thought it was a realistic portrayal.