Jesse Givens is a sensitive fifteen-year-old who's growing up in a super violent environment. How violent? As the book opens, he's attending the funeral of a boy his age who was shot and killed in...

Jesse and Rise have been friends since they were toddlers, so Jesse knows Rise really well. Or at least he used to… Lately it seems like he doesn't know Rise at all. That's because Rise has been...

Fifteen-year-old C.J. is a friend of Jesse's, though they haven't known each other all that long. The two teens met through church, and they're also both artists—C.J. plays the organ and the pian...

Jesse is pretty close with his folks, but as he gets older, he's finding it more difficult to talk to them about what's going on in his life: I was tight with my folks in a way. I could say things...

Sidney might be a cop, but Jesse thinks he's cool—and though we don't really see Sidney interacting with anyone else except for Rise (who's pretty rude to him), we get the sense that other people...