Shania never thinks much about being white. But after her beloved grandmother passes, Shania and her mother relocate to Blue Rock, a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Shania is thrust into Bard Academy, the city's wealthiest private school. At Bard, race is both invisible and hypervisible, and Shania's new friends are split on what they see. She's quickly "adopted" by Catherine Tate, the no-holds-barred daughter of one of Blue Rock's elite white families, and soon after is swept into a romance with Catherine's brother, Prescott.

When Shania is warned by one of the school's few Black students that Prescott is more dangerous than his golden-boy reputation lets on, Shania can't help but notice the pattern: his barely suppressed rage toward non-white students, comments about the homeless citizens displaced by gentrification, the mysterious story of a Black student leaving the school after an altercation with Prescott. When attacks begin to occur against Blue Rock's homeless, Shania begins to feel uneasy but to admit there's something wrong would be to give up her newfound sense of belonging.

However, Prescott isn't the only one with secrets. As Shania grieves for the grandmother she idolized, she realizes her family has secrets too, some of them with roots that stretch far back into Blue Rock's history. And when the pieces of the truth come to light-both past and present-Shania will have to make a choice and face the true violence in her silence.

About the Author
Olivia A. Cole is a writer from Louisville, Kentucky. Her essays, which often focus on race and womanhood, have been published in Bitch Media, Real Simple, The LA Times, HuffPost, Teen Vogue, Gay Mag, and more. She teaches creative writing at the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts, where she guides her students through poetry and fiction, but also considerations of the world and who they are within it. She is the author of several books for children and adults. Learn more about Olivia and her work at oliviaacole.com and follow her on Twitter @RantingOwl.


Book Information
ISBN 9780759554122
Author Olivia A Cole
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Little, Brown Young Readers
Publisher Little, Brown & Company
Weight(grams) 490g
Dimensions(mm) 218mm * 150mm * 35mm