Desperate to earn enough money to take care of his growing family, Mav returns to dealing with King. Mav does his best to stay away from the streets, but soon discovers that his now ex-girlfriend Lisa is pregnant with his second child. Even though the rules of the street dictate that he must kill Dre’s suspected murderer, Ant, he ultimately decides not to go after Ant because Dre would not have wanted him to become a killer-Ant is later shot dead in an unrelated gang fight. When Dre is tragically killed in a robbery, Mav struggles to navigate his grief and anger. His priorities start to change as he settles into fatherhood and tries to be the parent Seven deserves. At the behest of his cousin Dre, Mav quits dealing and begins working part-time for Mr. Left to care for Seven alone, Mav must find a way to balance fatherhood with the demands of his membership in the King Lords and the need to earn enough money to support his family. Lisa breaks up with him, and Seven’s mother, Iesha, abandons the baby with Mav. Mav’s life is upended when he finds out that he is the father of a three-month-old baby boy (later named Seven).

Mav is loyal to the King Lords, but in order to support himself and his mother, he deals hard drugs with his best friend King behind the backs of the other members.

He abides by the rules of the street, an unspoken but powerful set of guidelines that range from not getting beaten at basketball in front of a pretty girl to enacting violent revenge if someone harms a member of your family. With a father who was once an influential King Lords leader and is now incarcerated, Mav needs all the protection he can get from the violence that plagues the Garden. One big difference sets Mav apart from the average teenager, however: his membership in the powerful King Lords gang, an affiliation that started when he was only 12 years old. He likes playing basketball, and he loves his girlfriend, Lisa.

He’s funny, kind, and preoccupied with proving his manliness to his friends. Seventeen-year-old Maverick “Mav” Carter lives in the impoverished and predominantly Black neighborhood of Garden Heights, or “the Garden.” In many ways, he’s an average teenager.

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas