Some People's Kids - Matthew M Huntsberry

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.