What a Way to End

     Angry Black White Boy ends in a manner that isn't very stereotypical of a book that otherwise follows the hero's journey. I would go as far as to say it is quite the outlier. I've always been an avid reader I have to say of all the books I've read that follow the hero's journey narrative almost none end with the death of the protagonist. More often if there is a death it will be the death of a friend or a love interest. However, I can think of one book in which the protagonist dies at the end and looking back at that book it shares some themes with Angry Black White Boy.
     The first book is called The Midnight Star and it is actually the final book in a trilogy called the young elites. The trilogy begins in a similar way to Angry Black White Boy. While part of this simply has to do with the fact that they both follow the hero's journey, I think it goes a little further than that. The premise of the trilogy is that a plague swept through the nation killing any adult that got it and giving life long markings to any children who survived it. Some of those children then developed powers while others didn't. The ones who did become known as the young elites and the government created an inquisition to find and kill them all. As a result, any child with markings from the plague gets treated horribly by most people. The main character, Adelina, is someone who got the plague and got powers. She ends up joining a group of people like her who seek to overthrow the government and stop the injustice. Thinking about it, the people she joined up with were very similar to Andre and Nique. They were skeptical about her at first but later more or less grew to trust her. Their goals were also similar to Macon and his group's goals with both groups of people wanting to end some form of injustice. While the methods they chose were different I still find it interesting that the pushing force behind those methods was the same.
     It is at this point that I think the similarities really start getting interesting. Like Macon, Adelina goes too far with her goals. Take Macon's Day of Apology as his example. The idea behind it to get white people thinking about their race and the privilege that comes with it was a good idea but he implemented in a way that went too far and didn't accomplish his goal. Adelina ends up completely overthrowing the government and institutes a dictatorship with herself as the leader. Once again the idea of overthrowing a bad government isn't bad but becoming a dictator is going too far. Interestingly part of her process of becoming the dictator was betraying the group she found. I thought this was interesting because it meant that when both Macon and Adelina didn't achieve what they were trying to they betrayed their friends. That brings me back to the last book in the trilogy and what I consider to be the most important similarity. In the stories, both heroes make bad choices and become somewhat of a villain. However, in the end, they both sacrifice themselves to save someone else. Adelina gives up her life in exchange for her sisters and Macon puts his life on the line for Leo. I think that speaks to how books, where the hero makes questionable decisions, can try to redeem the character through self sacrifice.