Braselton Prep Senior, Justyce McAllister is having the worst year ever.  Everything appears set for his future.  He is bright, good looking and ready to take on the world, but being an African American male and coming of age in a private boarding school where very few attendees look like him has his psyche all messed up.  He is arrested trying to help his intoxicated mixed race girlfriend out of a car she should not have been driving.  His mother works crazy hours and is unable to talk him through some difficult situations.  His best friend and others at school are on a debate team where they grapple with issues of race, class and entitlement.  It seems as though once Justyce gets a handle on one area of his life, all hell breaks loose in another.  Justyce began a project in his junior year where he would keep a journal of  letters he writes to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about the social issues of today juxtaposed against Rev. King’s writings, teachings and philosophy.  But when tragedy strikes, Justyce doesn’t know where to turn.  He cannot talk to his Mom, his debate team member Sarah Jane, who he is crushing on and also happens to be a white girl or anyone.  How does a promising, Yale-bound African American male make it in a world where he is finding out daily that he is considered the problem?  How has it come to the only place he can find solace is to return to the neighborhood he ran so desperately to get away from?  Quan tells him, “there’s no escaping the BMC! BMC? Yeah the Black Man’s Curse. World’s got diarrhea and dudes like us are the toilet.”  Nic Stone’s debut novel, Dear Martin takes a realistic look at situations facing African American Males and their families now.  A fantastic emotional read that is well worth the time it takes to read it and the discussions that should occur after doing so.