This is My America by Kim Johnson. This book is relevant and emotional. It will give you a perspective that is sorely needed in this world today. The characters each brought something to the story, they were well written and best of all (at least to me) this is a book that any person over the age of 10 can understand and enjoy. ⭐
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This book is based around Tracy and her fight to get her father out of prison for a crime he did not commit. She does this by sending a letter once a week to Innocence X, in hopes that they will take her father's case. The story isn't just about her father, but about how that one event can change a family, and how black people, men especially are targeted by the police. The author explores every nuance and also offers at the end of the book, other books you can read that can help you understand more. This was much more than a fiction book, it was a history lesson, a now lesson and a book that screams to be read! 5⭐
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Thank you to Netgalley, Random House Children's and Kim Johnson for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

If you loved the Hate U Give or Tyler Johnson Was Here this book is for you.

Tracy Beaumont writes to Innocent X every week, asking them to look into her father's wrongfully convicted case. He was wrongfully convicted of murder 17 years ago and now only has 267 days left on death row. Then the unthinkable happens, after meeting with her brother girlfriend, who wants to write an expose with Tracey, she is found dead and Jamal is the only suspect. Jamal goes on the run and gets then Innocent X shows up to her father's case. With her father's case being reworked and Jamals case being worked in real time secrets that the town has buried come to light with the eerie similarities and the same connections.

I loved reading this book. I read it in one day and couldn't put it down. It showed the injustice of death rowand what can happen when someone is wrongfully accused and how hard it is to overturn or get a retrial. It shows how you can know people your whole life and not know there roots, where they came from, or what shaped them. I think everyone needs to read this book because it can be very eye opening and even if you disagree with it, it can place some seeds of doubt the next time you look at someone and judge them.

Title: This Is My America
Author: Kim Johnson
Genre: YA
Rating: 4 out of 5

Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time—her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive the uncovering of the skeletons of their Texas town’s racist history that still haunt the present?

This was compelling, sad, and uplifting. Sad because I know stuff like this actually happens. Compelling because Tracy’s determination and her willingness to keep fighting made the whole story sing. Uplifting because it’s always good to see good triumph over evil.

I live in Texas—born and raised—and I remember probably 30 years ago, a KKK rally happening in our town (Vaguely, and only by hearsay, because I was maybe 10 at the time and my parents would never have allowed us anywhere near that nonsense.), so it wouldn’t surprise me to see this situation play out. This also saddens me deeply but looking at it from the perspective of Tracy and her family made it especially heartbreaking. Solid, evocative writing and a captivating storyline will keep the reader glued to the pages of This is My America.

Kim Johnson is a college administrator and a mentor. This is My America is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House in exchange for an honest review.)

I received an ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

While This is My America is being released amid our current movement in support of Black Lives Matter, it’s also a reminder of the long history of racism against Black people and how that continues to be perpetuated in the criminal justice system.

I was heartbroken and enraged at the very real story depicted of Tracy and her family, with her father in prison and on death row for a crime he did not commit, and her brother with a promising future put in jeopardy due to him being blamed for the death of a white classmate. And as Tracy worked, attempting to lobby with the criminal justice organization Innocence X for help, as well as investigate what really happened, I was awestruck by what she found out about the history of racism in town.

This book is phenomenal, an absolute must-read for everyone, and a great starting point or addition to your anti-racist reading list.

Intense. Devastating. Yet hopeful. Don’t plan on getting anything else done once you start this book because you are going to have to finish it as fast as you can. Everyone needs to read this book.

I am so glad I read this book. Johnson tells an important story with characters who feel real and relatable. While I wish the writing was a bit tighter and more tell vs. show, I think this book will be one that many teens will gravitate to, will relate to, and will be talking about. Diversity in YA is still not at its peak, but it's good to see writers like Johnson being given a voice in the genre. The only thing I wish I could see changed about this book would be the romance. I don't think it's necessary and it feels a little unfinished. I think the trend these days in YA is to always include a romance, but I don't think this story needed it.

I'll definitely be recommending this book to those looking for realistic, contemporary fiction about current events.

This book was really good. That sounds so cliche to say, but I enjoyed it. As a mom of two black children it's frightening how often black people are pegged as the criminals despite evidence showing otherwise. I would suggest this books to anyone interested in race relations, YA fiction, or youth who want to make a difference in the world (or adults...I'm 36 and enjoyed this!).

I could not put this down. I loved and learned so much. Tracy, a HS student living in Texas, navigates living while Black. Her dad is in jail, on death row for murder and Tracy knows he is innocent, as he was at home with his family. But it was easier for the jury to believe a white witness then the evidence. Then, Jamal, Tracy's brother, a scholar and student-athlete is suspected in the murder of a white classmate. The challenges just keep piling up and it is not a big leap to understand that these " challenges" are in fact everyday reality for Blacks in America. The story is fast-paced and well crafted. I loved Kim Johnson's book I'm Not Dying with You Tonight and this one is even better. So much is covered here but in a way that hopefully will open a lot of eyes.

This Is My America by Kim Johnson left me speechless.

Comparisons to The Hate U Give are well-deserved, as Johnson takes on the criminal justice system and its devastating effects on Black families and communities with honesty and authenticity. Johnson also takes cues from Just Mercy as Tracy, the main character, fights for a final appeal as her father’s execution day approaches by petitioning Innocence X, a legal defense organization modeled after Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative.

This Is My America is a compelling narrative, timely because of recent events--the death of George Floyd and global BLM protests--and yet timeless because this struggle is not new. The story is fictional, but the injustices experienced by Black people daily are very real. Yet what makes this book so beautiful is that Johnson shines a light not just on Black pain but also on Black joy and Black resilience, Black families, and Black love.

I loved the author’s note at the end of the book, which draws parallels between the story and the author’s own lived experiences, and also provides a short yet comprehensive history of America’s systemic racism. She also provides resources for further reading, many of which are on my shelf, and I plan on adding the few that were not. This book should be put into the hands of teens and adults alike. It's that important--a must read book about contemporary social justice issues.

This YA debut is simply phenomenal, and I can’t wait to see what other stories Johnson will write. I will read every single one.

I definitely recommend this one to anyone who enjoyed A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder! Tracy is similar to Pip in the sense that she is incredibly determined to get both answers and proper justice. The book starts out focusing on Tracy’s dad but then starts to really pick up plot wise when a local girl is found murdered. I found the book to effectively show the messy, complicated, and frustrating aspects of this crazy world while also showing the value of love, trust, and dedication to doing what is right.

There was so much powerful writing in this book that I can’t fully focus on all of it, but one aspect I want to specifically highlight is the repetition of the idea that for Black Americans, there is a feeling of fear and outsider-ness that has been passed down for generations. In the novel, when faced with a police presence and a racially charged situation, a white character has the privilege to be able to let their guard down. She is “allowed to fall apart. Allowed to be human.” In contrast, the main character, who is a Black teenage girl, thinks “when I’m ready, I force myself to study mama, because I need to learn that strength so I can pass it down, like a family recipe. An heirloom. A curse.” The main character also says “it runs through my veins, the blood from every generation before me passing down this fear, coded into my DNA.” This fear has become as commonplace and inherent as passing down a family recipe for those in the Black community. And that is only one of the countless reasons why we need drastic change.

Some additional quotes from this novel that left me speechless....

“An AK-47 in a white hand got more rights than a Black kid with skittles.”

“Four hundred years, and we still ain’t American to them, T. All that blood. We built america. Black labor built the greatest nation in the world for free. They ripped us from our family then, and they do it again with new laws designed as change. I’ll be in prison doing that labor for free.”

This is My America is a YA debut novel by Kim Johnson and will be published 7/28. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The book opens with Tracy, an African-American high school junior and her family getting ready to be interviewed by their local Texas television station. The interview is supposed to be about Jamal, Tracy’s older brother who is a track star but Tracy has other plans. She needs to heighten awareness of the fact that their father is on death row for a murder that he did not commit. She’s hoping to get Innocence X, a national nonprofit that provides free legal representation, to take his case. Tracy’s family is against her mentioning that dad is in prison, they want this moment to be Jamal’s entirely.

At this point, I thought that the book was going to be a really interesting story about one girl’s fight to save her father and I was curious to find out why the rest of the family seemed so resigned to dad’s fate.

But then, a local white girl is murdered and Jamal is blamed for her death. He disappears and it becomes clear that Tracy is going to have to take care of finding out who the actual murderer is before her brother is caught.

There’s a lot going on in this book and I was initially concerned that the introduction of a whodunnit murder mystery would diminish the author’s ability to focus the reader’s attention on the racism that is entrenched in our justice system. I need not have worried on that count, the murder mystery and Tracy’s amateur detective work was able to highlight the fact that their small town’s history of Klan activity casts a very long shadow. I was with the author completely by the time Tracy reflects that the town might have erased their own dark history, but that the burden is still felt on the backs of the African-American community. This is a point that really resonated with me. We can’t cover up negative history. It needs to be confronted and we need to deal with how it continues to affect all of us today.

This book is powerful and gripping. The author’s storytelling is very strong. This book will appeal to lots of young adult readers.

Thanks to #Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Wow.
This book was amazing! I could not put this down.
I picked this book up because the gorgeous cover caught my eye! I’m seriously obsessed with it.


This book is so important! It is so relevant in today’s world.
This Is My America shows you what life like for a Black person in America.
It’s hard to read because it’s sickening to even think about what BPOC have to go through.

I knew going in that this book would talk about racism and the justice system.
But I was pleasantly surprised to find out it also has some mystery and whodunnit mixed in.


This Is My America is powerful, raw and unapologetic. It may be YA but it’s something everyone should read.

Thank you netgalley for the early copy of this book.

What do you do when the justice system has failed you? Tracy is trying to save her father and brother from a bias justice system. While she tries to bring justice to her family, she will learn racism is rooted deeper in her community than she thought. This is My America is a powerful representation of the contemporary justice system. From the beginning, the reader thinks the story will surround the fight to free Tracy's dad, who has been wrongly sentenced to death row. As you grow accustomed to this injustice, Tracy's brother, Jamal finds himself running for his life. Johnson masterfully weaves both Jamal and his father's stories together. Combining social justice and suspense to create an elaborate conspiracy against the African American community. This book was absorbing and will not let you go until the very last page. The characters are multidimensional, creating dynamic interactions and controversial conversations. This is such a powerful perspective and needs to be read at every age. Johnson created a book that gives readers real-life advice through Tracy's community meetings as well as transforming social justice into an understandable action.

“…and Texas was the first state to adopt private prisons. Texas continues to have the highest incarceration rate in the United States in those private for-profit prisons. One prisoner can mean twenty thousand dollars. Bodies mean dollars. Over three billion dollars a year. Think. It’s big business.” – Kim Johnson, This Is My America

I was blown away by Kim Johnson’s debut novel, This Is My America. Seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont’s dad has been on death row for seven years for a crime he didn’t commit. Each week, Tracy writes letters to Innocence X (similar to the Innocence Project) urging them to review her dad’s case and help their family. And then things take a turn for the worse when Tracy’s brother is sought for murder. Set outside Galveston, Texas, this novel highlighted issues with prisons, racism, and social injustice in my state. While the novel focuses on important issues, it is also an engaging, un-put-down-able thriller. Tracy is a strong female protagonist who isn’t willing to give up on her family or what she believes in and I adored her. This novel is a must-read for fans of Angie Thomas, Jason Reynolds and Just Mercy. Recommended for high school and up.

Disclaimer: The quoted text is from an uncorrected proof of this book that I received from #NetGalley.

"I stand straighter. My ancestor's strength pouring  into me, fully armored so I can fight to prove their innocence."

This Is My America is an exceptional, and well-needed, debut novel by Kim Johnson . Extremely relevant to the times, it ranks up there with books by Angie Thomas and Jason Reynolds. 

The main character, Tracy, lives with her family in Texas, a death penalty state with the highest rate of for-profit prisons. Tracy's father has been imprisoned for 7 years and is on death row after being wrongly convicted, which is all too common in this nation and its history.  She is hoping to get Innocence X to take her father's case when her brother ends up in a similar situation. Fighting against injustice, a ticking clock, and a town's long history of blatant racism, Tracy has the odds stacked against her, through no fault of her own or her family's own.

I absolutely loved Tracy and her family. She reminds me a bit of Starr from The Hate U Give, but while Starr is hesitant to join in the fight at first, Tracy is brave, strong, motivated, and inspiring right from the start.  I can't wait to read more from Johnson in the future. She will absolutely become an instant buy author for me.

Disclaimer: The quoted text is from an uncorrected proof of this book that I received from Random House Childrens in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children’s for an Advanced Listening Copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This must-read YA highlights the bias and systemic racism in the U.S. justice system while also calling attention to the need for activism from everybody around this topic.

Synopsis: High school student Tracy Beaumont will never stop pushing in any way necessary to bring attention to her father’s innocence, as he sits on death row for a crime he could not have committed. However, when her brother Jamal is on the run after being accused of a murder he also could not have commited, Tracy must balance her advocacy for her dad with an investigation of her own to get some answers that will clear her brother’s name.

The Author’s Note at the end of the book is a must-read to learn more about the author’s research and writing process. She definitely succeeded in her goal to “tackle serious topics and give hope to the next generation” in writing such a powerful main character. Very serious, important issues are brought up in this book, while also showing possibility and moments of joy. This is real life, with all of its messiness and beauty.

This book will also be highlighted on my Instagram account at Instagram.com/the.reading.life.

Tracy Beaumont is a seventeen-year-old Black girl who has been writing on behalf of her death row father for seven years, asking the organization Innocence X for legal help to spare his life. Tracy knows her father is innocent, but with less than three hundred days until his execution, time is running out for him, and for her. Her brother Jamal has been seeing Angela, a White girl, and when she is murdered, the police come to take Jamal away from Tracy too. Unwilling to lose yet another family member to injustice, Tracy embarks on a mission to discover what happened to Jamal and Angela the last time they were together, why Jamal has been accused, and who the real killer is. As she tries to find the truth, the sheriff, the townspeople, and the inner workings of the justice system itself conspire against her efforts to exonerate Jamal's name. As she digs deeper, she begins to see that what happened to Angela and the crime that put her father on death row are related, and the racist history of her Texas town runs like an ugly vein beneath the surface, changing the way everybody lives within it. Can she save her brother and her father in time, or will she be left alone to the despair of hollow injustice in the end? Bringing the truth out into the light isn't easy when so many people want to believe the lie.

This Is My America is a book that I believe should be required reading for high schoolers, and also for everyone else! Unflinching in its depiction of injustice in modern America, it shows the reader how difficult it is for an accused Black citizen to find justice. Tracy is an amazing daughter and sister as she fights for her family, never giving up hope for her father, and taking it upon herself to do everything in her power to clear her brother's name. She used her emotional anguish to fuel her dedication and investigation because she knew in her heart that the people she loved were not guilty. She spoke up even when others told her not to, and instead of accepting what might have seemed inevitable to others, she continued using her voice to put words to the injustice her family lived with for so many years. Her actions as the story progressed expose the language, the corruption, and the face of injustice toward Black Americans that occurs every day, which is part of why this book felt so powerful to me. The message of this story is clear, that we the people have a responsibility to challenge the status quo, to fight for those who others deem guilty from the start, to speak up and take a side when we see injustice, and to do whatever we can to avoid being complicit in it ourselves. Kim Johnson is a brilliant debut author, and I really hope to see more from her in the future. Do yourself a favor and pre-order this book, read it, and share it with everyone!

I could not put this down! What a timely read. It’s so so important to read books that tell the story of a reality you have not lived in order to better love those who have. Thank you @kcjohnsonwrites for your work and resources provided to continue the relearning.

This was such a great book and so pertinent to what is going on in our country right now.

I truly admire Tracy and the lengths she went to prove her father and brother were innocent. Her strength, her perseverance, her heart...we could all learn a lot from this amazing girl. This story gave only a sliver of insight into the racist injustices in the American justice system, but I think it is so important for everyone to read.

History has a habit of repeating itself, but racism has been an ever present evil in our world. It’s a vicious cycle that has yet to be broken, but it’s people like Tracy and Innocence X who are making a difference and being the change.

Highly recommend!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3424032532

I finished This is My America by @kcjohnsonwrites a few days ago but needed this time to process my thoughts. This book was everything and more. You have racial tensions, murder, mystery, wrongful conviction, and romance. Everything that is in this book resonates with the times today. The way Black men are treated in society. The so called justice system and death row. Imagine being a 17 year old Black girl who has the threat of losing not only her father but her older brother, this is a fear for many Black woman in America. 5 ⭐️ ⁣
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Synopsis: ⁣
Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time—her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy’s older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a “thug” on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive the uncovering of the skeletons of their Texas town’s racist history that still haunt the present?⁣
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Be sure to preorder This Is My America! It releases July 28th. Thank you @randomhouse and @netgalley for my gifted copy #partner