Leaving Atlanta - Tayari Jones

It's summer in Atlanta and black children are disappearing. By the time the heinous killing spree is over, 29 will be dead. This haunting menace provides the backdrop to the exquisitely evocative stories of three children fighting the everyday battles of adolescence; Tasha, who is coping with her parents' separation and the sweet pain of a first crush on a tender boy; Rodney, who struggles to make friends and wants only to please his abusive father; and Octavia, who faces down the popular crowd at school and must straddle the line between protected and protective daughter. Ultimately, these individual stories reveal the loss of innocence that accompanies the passage from childhood to adulthood. Based on the true-life Atlanta child murders, in which 29 black children were murdered over the course of two years, the terror behind the story is vivid and powerful. The author herself lived through this period and suffered the trauma of having two of her fifth-grade classmates abducted and murdered.