The story that I thought
was my life
didn’t start on the day
I was born
Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.
The story that I think
will be my life
starts today
Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?
With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.
This was one of those that was all over my Facebook scroll, and between the cover art, the authors, and the plot, I knew I had to get ahold of this real quick. Obviously, I knew Ibi Zoboi from reading Pride a couple weeks back, but I was less familiar with Yusef Salaam outside of the Central Park Jogger case and was interested in getting to know more about him creatively. Let's just say, I got more than I bargained for.
