Daje Shelton, 17, is determined to turn things around and create a brighter future for herself in her gritty St. Louis neighborhood after a school fight puts her in a court-supervised alternative high school. But concentrating on school is difficult as she loses several friends to gun violence, falls in love for the first time, and becomes pregnant with a boy, Ahkeem, just as Ferguson erupts a few miles away. For Ahkeem explores the problems that many Black teenagers endure in America today through Daje's intimate coming-of-age story, and witnesses the fortitude, tenacity, and resolve it takes to live.
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Daje Shelton, 17, is determined to turn things around and create a brighter future for herself in her gritty St. Louis neighborhood after a school fight puts her in a court-supervised alternative high school. But concentrating on school is difficult as she loses several friends to gun violence, falls in love for the first time, and becomes pregnant with a boy, Ahkeem, just as Ferguson erupts a few miles away. For Ahkeem explores the problems that many Black teenagers endure in America today through Daje's intimate coming-of-age story, and witnesses the fortitude, tenacity, and resolve it takes to live.
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