The writing in this book is fine. Probably 3 stars for that. The characters are fairly flat and the overall tone didactic, but it's not terrible. I'm just burnt out on all of these books written about the Civil Rights movement from the point of view of white girls whose eyes are opened to the atrocities of segregation by a black friend. There are multiple issues I have with this continued narrative, the biggest one being that it centers a white hero at the center of a black struggle and reduces the ones being suppressed to sidekicks in their own history. I would laugh at the irony of it didn't make me cry. Reading the author's note at the end, I was annoyed even more. Kidd watched a documentary about this and in the face of all that courage and suffering from black people zeroed in on one white girl whose story was the most important to tell from that. What the heck? And then he didn't even stick to historical fact when it came to her. I just can't with that.