Concrete Rose Themes

Masculinity and Fatherhood

Concrete Rose follows 17-year-old Maverick Carter, a gangster who loves his friends and sees his affiliation with the King Lords gang as a necessity. But Maverick’s life repeatedly turns upside down: first, a DNA test reveals that Maverick’s one-night stand with a girl named Iesha resulted in a son. Soon after, Maverick’s beloved older cousin, Dre, is shot and killed. And finally, Maverick discovers that his ex-girlfriend Lisa is pregnant with his baby…

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Identity and Individuality

Though Maverick is only 17 years old, he’s already been a member of the King Lords gang for five years. He had to join at age 12 for protection, since his father, Pops (a former member of the same gang), made so many enemies before he was imprisoned for life. Because of his father’s reputation, Maverick is known around the city of Garden Heights as Li’l Don, a reference to Pops’s first name. To others…

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Loyalty, Gang Affiliation, and Family

Maverick is an extremely loyal person. Though he takes issue with his gang affiliation for several reasons over the course of the novel, he maintains that being a part of the King Lords means that he’ll always have “brothers” who are loyal to him and whom he needs to be loyal to in return. Similarly, Maverick cares deeply for his parents, Ma and Pops and his older cousin Dre. And when he suddenly becomes…

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Poverty

The novel’s 17-year-old protagonist, Maverick, isn’t sure what he wants to do with his life, but he knows one thing: he has to make money. He and his family are struggling to make ends meet—and though Maverick nurses secret dreams of going to college and owning a business, he knows that in reality, that’s not an option for him. In order to support his family, he needs to stay in his home city of…

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