I always feel like a bit of a cliche when I describe books as important, but Just Mercy is an important read.

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer, and director of the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama. Just Mercy is a combination of memoir, exploring his career as a black man committed to avoiding miscarriages of justice, and an argument for a more just criminal justice system in the United States, particularly in the South.

Stevenson particularly focuses on the death penalty as an example of just how far gone the system is, and also on the issue of young people having their entire futures taken away; either through capital punishment or life-long prison sentences. Both of these tend to be punishments given more to those from non-white backgrounds and those who are poor. Stevenson illustrates his points with cases that he worked on; he doesn't shy away from some of his clients having committed crimes, but that the system rarely recognises the individual circumstances of defendants. The main case study, of Walter McMillan, who is sentenced to death for a crime he is adamant he didn't commit, is threaded throughout the book.

I cried tears of sadness, anger and happiness reading Just Mercy, and would really, really love it if you read it too.