Starr is living two lives; private school Starr, who uses minimal slang and is one of not even a handful of black kids at her school and then there’s Starr from the hood. She’s worked hard to keep those two lives separate and has been pretty successful until one fateful night when her life changes forever. While driving home from a party with her friend Khalil, he is shot and killed by a cop after they were pulled over. In an instant Starr’s biggest worries went from how to keep her private school friends and her friends from the hood apart to how to keep herself and her family safe. The media, police, and even the neighborhood gang leader wants everyone to believe that Khalil was a gang banging drug dealer, but Starr knew the truth. Starr struggles with finding her voice and telling the truth about that night and who Khalil really was, even through the threats from police and local gangs, and learning how to blend her school and neighborhood lives together.