When You Look Like Us

Harris, Pamela N.

A timely, gripping YA debut perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Tiffany Jackson, now in paperback, about a boy who must take up the search for his sister when she goes missing from a neighborhood where black girls’ disappearances are too often overlooked. 

When you look like us—brown skin, brown eyes, black braids or fades—people think you’re trouble. No one looks twice at a missing black girl from public housing because she must’ve brought whatever happened to her upon herself. I, Jay Murphy, can admit that, for a minute, I thought my sister, Nicole, got too caught up with her drug-dealer boyfriend and his friends. But she’s been gone too long now.

If I hadn’t hung up on her that night, if I was a better brother, she’d be finishing senior year instead of being another name on a missing persons list.

It’s time to step up and do what the Newport News police department won’t: Bring her home.