New York Times and USA Today bestseller * Goodreads Finalist for Best Teen Book of the Year * Time Magazine Best Book of the Year * Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year* Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year * School Library Journal Best Book of the Year * New York Public Library Best Book of the YearFrom award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated.
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 never should have been his story.
Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art.
The story that I thinkwill be my life starts todaySuddenly, 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. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.
Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy.
But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system.
The story that I thoughtwas my lifedidn’t start on the dayI was born Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet.
Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.
New York Times and USA Today bestseller * Goodreads Finalist for Best Teen Book of the Year * Time Magazine Best Book of the Year * Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year* Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year * School Library Journal Best Book of the Year * New York Public Library Best Book of the YearFrom award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated
