The twelve numbered chapters feature occasional subheadings, usually consisting of times or place names and dates, all set around Gugulethu in August 1993.

Only the first chapter is written as an obvious letter, in which Mandisa, the first-person speaker, directly talks to the addressee.

In between the English story appear words marked in italics: e.g. terms like hokkie, bhuti, Bajita, mlungu, Ewe ... or whole phrases in Xhosa language.

By telling the story of Mandisa's own upbringing and the childhood and youth of Mxolisi, she would like to cast light on their troubled circumstances, deeply interrelated with apartheid, racial segregation, police violence and brutality, injustice, institutionalised poverty and marginalisation.

When Mandisa returns home, she hears about violence in her township, which is common, only one person has died apparently.

His teenage friends Mzamo and Zazi are shot by police in front of his eyes, leaving him deeply disturbed, wetting his bed and not being able to talk for some time, until his stepfather Lungile forces him to eat a mouse.

Mxolisi follows Lungile's example, who leaves to become a freedom fighter, and engages with street gangs, for which he quits school (Liberation now, education later and One Settler, One Bullet are some of their slogans).

In Germany's state Lower Saxony it has been officially chosen as an essential novel to read for the Abitur exam in English in 2022 and 2023.