Until color tear us apart At sixteen, Amara Jackson has already seen more hardship than most adults. Growing up in the segregated South, she faces a world that tells her she is less — because she is Black, and even among her own, because her skin is darker than theirs. At home, things are no better. Her father’s anger fills the small house like thunder, and her mother’s silence feels like rain that never stops. School had always been her escape — a place where she could dream of something beyond the fences of her town. When Amara and two other Black teens are chosen to integrate Riverton High, a white-only school, she sees it as a chance to change her life. But walking through those school doors is like stepping into a storm. Every day brings new challenges — the stares, the cruel words, the loneliness. Even so, Amara refuses to bend. She studies harder, walks taller, and learns to find her strength in the quiet moments no one sees.

• Romance