“Concrete Rose,” Angie Thomas’ prequel to her bestselling debut “The Hate U Give,” tells the story of Maverick, father of the protagonist Starr in “The Hate U Give.”

Thomas’ story of teenage fatherhood, gang culture and the struggle to escape terrible circumstances, grips from the start. The central difference between the two books is that Starr, privately educated at a predominantly white school, has problems and difficulties of her own, but she also has a certain amount of privilege, which is denied by her father.

Maverick has been born into the gang life, a fact that makes it harder to get out even if that’s what both his mother and his cousin Dre want. “See, there’s levels to King Lords,” Maverick explains. “You get little homies like me, King and our boys Rici and Junie. We handle initiations, recruitment, and sell weed. Next is the big homies like Dre and Shawn. They sell the harder stuff, make sure the rest of us have what they need, make alliances, and discipline anybody who step out of line.”

Complicating matters further, he has a baby with his best friend’s girlfriend and he is thus forced to juggle the twin trials of high school and parenthood.

Thomas, always an accomplished writer capable of thrusting the reader straight into the heart of the story, performs wonders here. Maverick’s character, by turns thoughtful and hot-headed, springs from the page. We root for him even as he makes mistakes, in part because we know he is trying, if not always succeeding. “I don’t know how I’m handling it. The baby cries all the time, barely sleeps, always needs a diaper change or a bottle. I’m ready to crack after one weekend.”

Thomas is careful about depicting a relationship’s twists, showing readers that nothing is entirely straightforward. The result is a lovely, sensitive portrayal of young, black masculinity, which never talks down to its audience and perfectly captures often ignored and unrecorded lives. (SD-Agencies)