Before the Ever After

ZJ's dad is a famous football player — the kind of dad other kids want. But something is changing. His dad is forgetting things, getting headaches, losing himself. Woodson tells this story in verse, which lets her hold grief and love in the same breath. This is a book about CTE — the brain damage that ends football careers and lives — told through the child who watches it happen to his hero. It is also a book about what it means to love someone who is disappearing. Woodson writes about Black family life with extraordinary warmth and refuses to let the illness be the only thing in the room.