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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Very heavy
Police beatings, shootings, riot violence, and Ella's supernatural retaliation, some of it apocalyptic in scale
Language
Very heavy
Heavy profanity, including racial slurs used within the communities depicted
Sexual Content
Some
Limited
Substance Use
Some
Drug dealing, addiction, and the criminalization of both are part of the systemic critique
Emotional Intensity
Overwhelming by intent
What this book is about
Ella can see and do things no one can explain; her brother Kev is born during the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and grows up into incarceration. Reviewers describe the novella as "extremely dark and graphic in its nature," with scenes brutal enough that Grimdark Magazine's reviewer called them the look-away moments if this were a film. The book builds directly on the beating of Rodney King, the Watts Riots, and the shooting of Sean Bell. The Nerd Daily describes it as building relentlessly, digging its claws in, and quietly devastating on the Black American experience. Short, furious, and unmistakably adult.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Graphic depictions of police brutality drawn from real events
Incarceration and solitary confinement
Racial slurs and unrelenting rage
Reader Verification
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