Hood Girl

Tamera “Mimi” Carter had always moved through Memphis like she owned every cracked sidewalk and every flickering streetlight. North Memphis raised her raw, raised her tough, raised her loud when she needed to be and quiet when she didn’t trust nobody — which was almost always. After losing her father to gun violence at sixteen, she and her older brother hardened up quick. He abandoned school and basketball to take over their father’s old crew, and Tamera dropped out too, choosing the strip club lights over classrooms. That’s where she built her small circle — Keisha, Tia, and Angel — the only girls she trusted enough to call friends. Now at twenty-two, Tamera still lived with her brother in a decent neighborhood, still spoiled in her own dangerous way, still quick-mouthed, still reckless