Book overview
When a racial tragedy divides a college town, a student free-speech club stands for unity amid violent demands for its termination.
"A breath of fresh air!" Especially for teens, this modern YA novel teaches crucial ideas and skills needed today more than ever:
- How to critically process new experiences and information, helping readers resist the temptation to quickly flip to a radically different worldview simply because one of their principles appears to be in conflict.
- How to productively engage professors and friends who disagree with you.
- Key facts and concepts they may not get in college on the Constitution, free markets, climate change, race and diversity, American history, individual rights, and more. These act as mental tripwires so the reader will remember there is more to the story.
A YEAR AFTER THE INCIDENT, a destructive group called Zero Supremacy marches against the officer involved as the trial approaches. Freshman Jace Kartchner conducts secret operations to undermine them. One of the operations goes wrong, and he must complete community service...alongside one of the Zeroes. Arguments over claims of white supremacy escalate into an all-out fight.
Another target of Zero Supremacy is The Bathwater Brigade, a free-speech campus tradition where students seek out all angles of an issue. With college administration refusing to help, they are forced to meet in hiding for safety. Brigade member Mari Munoz gets Jace's attention as she covertly recruits the right kind of classmates for her club. Jace earns her trust and is invited in. Mari urges Jace to use his new skills to find nuance and common ground with the Zero.
Jace can't believe he is actually becoming friends with one of the enemy, and his best friend is ready to disown him because of it. Meanwhile, Jace discovers he has accidentally given campus administration the excuse it has been waiting for to shut The Bathwater Brigade down for good.
"A brilliant idea!" Become resilient among today's conflicting ideologies through this powerful story.
