D Foster showed up in Neeka’s life right before Tupac got shot the first time, and leaves forever after he dies. Their time together is spent exploring treatment of gay men in the black community and black men in prisons, as well as what it means to grow up in that environment.
Publisher’s Description
D Foster showed up a few months before Tupac got shot that first time and left us the summer before he died. The day D Foster enters Neeka and her best friend’s lives, the world opens up for them. D comes from a world vastly different from their safe Queens neighborhood, and through her, the girls see another side of life that includes loss, foster families and an amount of freedom that makes the girls envious. Although all of them are crazy about Tupac Shakur’s rap music, D is the one who truly understands the place where he’s coming from, and through knowing D, Tupac’s lyrics become more personal for all of them.
The girls are thirteen when D’s mom swoops in to reclaim D—and as magically as she appeared, she now disappears from their lives. Tupac is gone, too, after another shooting; this time fatal. As the narrator looks back, she sees lives suspended in time, and realizes that even all-too-brief connections can touch deeply.
Genre: Historical
Representation:
Gender:
Cis boys: Character’s brother
Sexual Orientation:
Gay/Queer: Character’s brother
Romantic Orientation:
Homoromantic: Character’s brother
Race/Ethnicity:
Black: Character’s brother
Trigger Warnings: Death, violence, racism, prison