A raw coming-of-age novel about survival in broken systems.
After rehab, probation, and one too many disasters at home, he’s dropped at Hope House, a grim teen shelter where the rules are strict, the futures are short, and aging out feels more like a sentence than an escape. With nowhere else to go and no real way back, Strummer is forced to navigate a world of damaged kids, overworked staff, and systems that confuse survival with redemption.
Inside Hope House, he finds uneasy connection in the other residents—especially Darby and Nicky, two teenagers as bruised and volatile as he is. Together they form the closest thing to family any of them have left. But in a place built on trauma, loyalty comes tangled with desire, addiction, grief, and the constant threat of losing everything.
As the walls close in and the promise of adulthood turns into a cliff edge, Strummer has to decide what kind of person he’ll become when no one is coming to save him.
Some People’s Kids is a raw, lyrical coming-of-age novel about addiction, institutional failure, chosen family, and the dangerous hope of trying to survive long enough to make a life of your own.
