The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.

At a time when Black Lives Matter movement is bringing forth the deep embedded racism in the United States, when racist people are being called out and racism deniers are trying to hog the limelight, The Nickel Boys serves as a testament to the truth beneath it all.

Set during the era of the Civil Rights Movement, Colson Whitehead tells the story of Elwood Curtis. Elwood is a serious young boy, getting good grades and working hard at Mr. Marconi's Tobacco and Cigars shop. He's kept on tstraight and narrow by his grandmother, Harriet. Elwood listens to Dr. Martin Luther King and conducts himself according to the ideals. But as luck would have it, he is sent to the Nickel Academy, a juvenile reform school. The school claims to turn delinquent boys to honourable men.

But that is all on the surface. Inside the campus of the reform school, Elwood sees the horror white men can exert when he is beaten senseless for standing up for a fellow inmate. It is here in the school that he meets Turner. Turner is an exact opposite of Elwood, he does not care for the right or wrong but for how he has to survive. The duo form an unlikely frendship. What follows next is a tale of violence, death and survival and facing the truth about demons one attempts to keep at bay.

The Nickel Boys is a profound read. It brings up the truth of how racism has forever operated in America, and of its victims. The reform school is a based on an actual reform school that operated for more than a hundred years, with more than a few skeletons in its closet, literally and figuratively. I would recommend you to read the book, and then look up the Florida School for Boys or Dozier School for Boys.