You’re one of the unfortunate ones if you have not yet picked up a copy of One of the Good Ones by the sister-writer duo Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite. In their YA novel, they craftily weave an intergenerational story of sisterhood, racial trauma, respectability politics, and systemic racism into a digestible, heartfelt, and touching indictment of what it means to navigate blackness in America.

But, wait, hold up, the sisters don’t just stop there. They give us so much to chew on in this novel because our young black and brown women face issues at an alarming rate that put them at risk for depression, anxiety, and suicide that need to be addressed. Furthermore, the book takes on the black church and its indictment on homosexuality as well. One of the Good One does not hold anything back and it shouldn’t because our young adults must stand up and speak out against the things affecting their right to exist as full beings. This novel speaks to their ability to be just that: HUMAN.

In One of the Good Ones, the characters Kezi, Happi, and Genny allow us to breathe in the beauty of sisterhood while also fathoming the bone-chilling remembrance of the past and the reality of American prejudice. We all deserve humanity—black lives matter—the novel reminds us: “I pause at the ones who have made their marks in our society through the grave, through their ashes drifting in the wind, through their bodies in the rivers, necks on the line. Something was taken from them. Life was stolen from them.”