A timely and well written look at relevant social issues dealing with race and police brutality. Well researched, the authors tie in "The Green Book" and historical examples of racism to weave a poignant story. While the twist was unexpected, and gut wrenching, I feel like it took the focus of the story from the main themes and lessened the impact of story.

This was quite the emotional read with an unexpected ending. The author beautifully lays a solid foundation of introducing the characters and allows readers to resonate with each one of them as they grapple with the lost of a loved one. But the content is extremely emotional and not sure I would have my students read it as a class text. However, while emotional, it is also necessary and so would definitely include it in the class library and suggest that our librarian have a couple copies on hand as well.

This was a DNF at 30% for me. The message in this book is important, it has great diversity and representation. However, I found it written in a poetic style, which I don’t jive with and I found it overwritten and quite boring.

I really liked this one. The story of the siblings and their relationship was so great! I enjoyed the way this was written and I hope to read more from these authors!

Impressive. Starts out strong and has a good twist near the end that I did not see coming. The characters and settings are well-done and believable. Nice mystery feel, too. I like how the queer subplot worked out, too.

This book is incredible, start to finish! It managed to be so many different things but weave them together without every breaking stride. It’s part road trip story, part multigenerational narrative, part thriller at times and each part feels like it adds to the whole. Every character was gloriously realized. I cannot recommend this book enough!

This book is filled with emotion telling an impactful, and brilliant story that describes the horrific realities of racism in both the past and present in a sincerely compelling mystery format.

Do not miss the incredibly powerful author’s note. It informs the reader that this is not purely a fictional tale, rather one that is repeated time and time again in real life. The media may capture some of the stories, but far more go unnoticed… individuals, whole families and even and communities. Read it, internalize it and feed it into activism.

The story is told through a dual narrative that spans Happi, Kezi, and Shaqueria’s individual accounts. Eventually all three narratives join together and intersect in surprising ways. The characters are authentic young people with realistic dialogue and emotions driving their actions.


The book is a well crafted mystery, packed full of genuinely shocking twists and turns. The story challenged my expectations and questions about who is considered a victim societally,
I predict YA mystery readers will devour this heart-wrenching, thought-provoking tale that packs an emotional punch and delivers some timely social commentary.

One of the Good Ones is a book you do not want to miss.

OMG. This book. THIS BOOK. It was AMAZING. I have no words. My mind is still just blown right now. Please read ‘One of the Good Ones’ this instant!! You need to experience the immense writing talent of sister author duo Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite for yourselves.

Poignant, powerful, raw, honest, beautiful and devastating...shocking, wildly suspenseful, ‘One of the Good Ones’ by Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite tackles social issues, true American history (that is often censored or totally erased-whitewashed-within America’s education system), tragedy, loss, coming of age, the unbreakable and sometimes imperfect bond of sisters, and then takes an insane turn I never saw coming. Seriously. A few days later, and my mind still goes WTF WTF when I think of the twists!

I rode a rollercoaster of emotions throughout this entire book. Maika and Maritza Moulite are beautifully gifted storytellers. I’m not exaggerating. The intricacy of this plot, the way everything weaves together by the end...the impact is mind and genre bending.

‘One of the Good Ones’ deserves all the praise and awards possible. I don’t want to give anything away, so I will just reiterate: read ‘One of the Good Ones’ ASAP. It’s one of the best books I’ve read all year. I will not be forgetting this story any time soon. I promise it will hit you in the heart and then have you absolutely on the edge of your seat.

I really look forward to reading everything else this amazing author duo comes out with. ‘Dear Haiti, Love Alaine’ is up next and I can’t wait.

(Many thanks to Inkyard Press for providing me with an eARC copy of this book! All opinions expressed are voluntary and my own.)

Jaw-dropping! Offered more than initially expected. A powerful story of sisterhood. This story helps readers think about the different ways siblings perceive and experience their family culture. One of the Good Ones doesn't underestimate the power of family, faith, and friendship for one second.

A fantastic story! So many important conversations and themes. That plot twist was a killer, as well!

"One of the Good Ones" is everything. There isn't a black person that isn't familiar with judging if they are "one of the good ones" and if they deserve to be treat fairly, like an actual person, and if they deserve justice. It's an important story about sisterhood.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this novel!

I love a good sister story and this definitely packed a punch. It was full of hard hitting but important topics.

I love this author duo and will pick up anything and everything they write! Their writing is captivating and their characters are strong, unique and you feel for these characters from page 1.

The only thing I knew about this book before going in was that it was pitched as “The Hate U Give meets Get Out” and that was enough to get me excited. I dropped everything as soon as I got a notification from Netgalley and found a compelling story and characters I really loved but aspects of the structure and writing didn’t work as much for me. I really liked the set-up of this story. Getting to know all the key players and their pasts that would become important later caught my attention and I especially enjoyed getting to know Kezi and her girlfriend. I also liked the multi-generational aspect of the story. You get to learn about Kezi’s family history and what sparked the road trip in the first place. There is also a mystery element that REALLY picks up in part three and was especially gripping. The ending provided some powerful commentary on how the media portrays Black people when they are killed and how they decide who is worth mourning - who is “one of the good ones” - and the impacts of those decisions.
The main aspect of the book that brought down my reading experience was down to transitions between scenes. Sometimes scenes would end and there was not really an indication we were moving to something else apart from a paragraph break and sometimes it took me a bit to realize what was happening. I would quickly get back on track but there were a few times when I felt like a couple of sentences might have been missing. I also felt like I wanted a little more from the ending. The peak of the action was very late in the story and then it was just over.
Overall, I still recommend this story as it deals with important themes of police brutality, who we decide is worth mourning, and what can happen when racism is passed down through generations. Even though I had some issues with the writing, I think the positives definitely outweigh any of that.

Kezi Smith, a teenage social activist who posts her thoughts on her YouTube Channel, is a senior in high school and about to turn 18. She is excited to attend her first Black Lives Matter protest with her best friend and secret girlfriend Ximena. Things go wrong and she ends up dead after being arrested at the protest. Her sisters Happi and Genny and her best friends Ximena and Derek decide to go on the mapped out road trip that Kezi was going to take after graduation. They used her YouTube Channel to document their journey for all of Kezi's fans to help give everyone closure over her sudden death and learn some history in the process. They stopped at different spots down route 66 highlighted in the Negro Motorist Green book, first published in 1936 that gave black travelers safe places to get Lodging, gas, and food.

The beautifully written novel had multiple points of view and the timeline change from before, during, and after to create a depth to the characters and the plot. You will be absorbed into their personal struggles and discoveries as they band together to honor Kezi's dream. There is even an unexpected twist at the end that will blow you away. I can't wait to read the Moulite sisters' first book and the future ones that they hopefully write.

Big thank you to NetGalley and Ink Yard Press for the audiobook. All opinions are my own.

One of the Good Ones touches on how the media treat victims of police brutality. Kezi, a popular Youtuber/activist, dies after attending a social justice rally in policy custody. She was an A+ student, well-liked and “One of the Good Ones”. After her death Kezi was idealized and becomes a symbol and a martyr. This book challenges the notion that victims, especially Black victims, have to be perfect in order to be mourned.

The book really centers on the sibling relationship between Kezi, Happi and Genny and when I realized it was written by a sibling duo, it made sense why the dynamic was written so well. You can really feel the bond between them even when they don’t seem to like each other very much. All three of the characters were written with a lot of nuance. Kezi was my absolute favourite and for a book that mostly takes place after her death, it’s impressive she was written with so much depth.

I loved the depiction of grief. I thought the authors did a wonderful job of showing how everyone in Kezi’s life was responding differently to her death.

The book was told using mulitple perspectives, not all of them equally interesting. Happi was fairly unlikeable of a character but her perspective was generally more interesting. I think some perspectives were just not necessary to hear from.

Kezi had planned on going on a road trip using The Negro Motorist Green Book to visit the haven locations mentioned in the book. After her death, Genny invites Kezi’s friends, Derek and Ximena, as well as her little sister, Happi to come along. This was one of my favourite aspects of the book and I liked how the journey had changed Happi’s perspective on activism.

I especially loved how much of a focus intersectionality has in this book. It was very diverse and the representation was meaningful. This is also an #ownvoices book!

There were two main reasons it wasn’t a five star book imo. There is a twist about 60% through the book which I absolutely hated. I’m not going to spoil it but it just ruined the realism of this book. The first part of this book was so strong and I really think this book did not need to have any twists.

The other reason is that One of the Good Ones talks about a lot of issues and there simply wasn’t enough time for each issue to get as much focus as it deserves. It touches on police brutality, generational oppression, classism, homophobia, religion, sexism, racism, performative allyship, respectability politics and this is all in the first 60% of the book too.

Final Thoughts: 4.5 stars. One of the Good Ones is an engrossing well written book, that tackled a few too many topics.

4.5/5 Stars

When teen activist Kezi Smith, is mysteriously killed after attending a social justice rally, she leaves behind her sister Happi and the rest of their family. Using an old copy of the Greenbook, Happi, her older sister Genny and Kezi's two best friends, set off on a roadtrip to memorialize Kezi.

I loved the snippets of history through out this story. I like how it was told in multiple timelines and perspectives as well. It was interesting to be able to see the rally, the arrest and everything that came after it as well. I loved how the chapters were titled in relation to the timeline surrounding Kezi's arrest. We get to hear from Happi, Kezi, a girl named Shaqueira and Evelyn, Happi's grandmother. This is definitely a character driven story, and I fell in love with all of them. I loved the sibling dynamics and how we were still able to feel connected to Kezi, even when she had passed. This book discusses some serious topics surrounding very poignant social issues in today's society. I thought this was a strictly contemporary story, so the twists and turns were a great touch for my thriller loving heart.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to everyone!

There are a lot of layers to this story and a lot of major, serious issues are addressed. I’m not going to name all of them because that would definitely involve spoilers.

There were many things I loved about this book and I enjoyed the lessons it’s trying to teach. It also mentioned a few historical details that I didn’t know and I always appreciate learning something new while I read.

I know I would have enjoyed this story more if it hadn’t been for the big whopper of a trust about 75% of the way into the book. I felt my enjoyment of the book decrease when that part of the story started.

This book is mainly about the characters Kezi, Happi, Genny, Shaqueria, Ximena and Derek. The book takes place in a lot of timelines. Most of the book is broken into “before the arrest” which is mostly Kezi and Shaquerie’s chapters and “after the arrest” is mostly Happi along with Genny, Ximena and Derek.

There’s a lot of talk in this book about being “one of the good one”.
Kezi is a teenage activist. Mostly she posted videos only but one day she attends her first protest for an Black man who was killed by the police. At that rally, Kezi is taken away in handcuffs and roughed up by the police. As her family mourns the loss of Kezi, the work tried to turn her into a martyr. Kezi was one of the good ones.

Happi thinks if it had been her, people wouldn’t be as upset because she wasn’t as “good” as Kezi, she’s just a normal teenager. She thinks even her parents preferred Kezi and her old sister Genny. I did think that was ironic because it seemed to me that their parents only supported Kezi in theory, after what happened, they never wanted her to go to the protest.

Genny was my favorite, I think she is the glue that keeps her family together.

Shaqueria is down on her luck, she’s bounced around from foster home to foster home and is trying to make it on her own at 18. In a new city, trying to start her acting career, she finds herself selling drugs to afford her rent. It wasn’t supposed to be like this she thinks, it won’t be like this for long she thinks. She just has to get by until things get better.

The story also flashed back to the relatives of Kezi, Happi and Genny. We get the story of a relative who was killed in the 50’s. So, there’s a comparison between things that have changed and things that have not.

Kezi wanted to honor her relatives and she planned a road trip with her sisters and best friends. The stops were centered around a Green Book that shows all the places that it was safe for black people to stay, eat or even get gas.
With Kezi gone, her sisters and best friends take the trip without her.

As a side note, I don’t know why we got a very brief story about their relative Antonin that I felt opened the door to a good character, brought me into that storyline for about three chapters, then closed the door and never went back.

This book covered a lot of serious issues but the main question it wants the reader to think about is, why does society act as though a Black person who was killed has to be a good person for the crime to be wrong? Why does the media have to talk about the potential for the life lost? Why do are we quicker to mourn “the good one” and forget about the one who wasn’t perfect?

Existing as a human being is reason to mourn the life of someone who was killed.

I read an early ebook edition from NetGalley but waited until now to read it.

At the ripe young age of 18, Kezi Smith is on the cusp of everything! She's got a growing following on her YouTube channel, and her activism is just getting started. But when she attends her first in-person protest/rally, things go horribly wrong and Kezi's end becomes a rallying cry for her followers and her family. As her sisters Genny and Happi struggle in the aftermath of their sister's death, they plan to commemorate Kezi by going on the Route 66 road trip that Kezi has so thoughtfully planned out. Through Kezi's notes in an old copy of The Green Book, the sisters hope to learn about their family's history. What they don't expect is to uncover mysteries of their family's distant and more recent past.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

The premise of this book - a young Black activist killed by law enforcement at a protest and the subsequent pain and grief of her family - was a good one.

Where One of the Good Ones came up short was in the ending, which was far-fetched.

That said, I enjoyed the characters and the evolution of Happi. I think there is enough of the initial premise to get the very serious point across - that no matter who is killed, their lives are valuable. They do not need to be “one of the good ones” too effect change and be mourned.

Incredible story with Black Lives Matter/police brutality/social justice themes. The book was fabulous and the TWIST made it even better!