When I first heard about The Hate U Give I knew I had to read it. Angie Thomas has written a timely novel that has won numerous awards.
The book follows the life of a sixteen-year-old Starr Carter. She lives in a poor neighborhood, but her parents send her to a fancy white prep school. She feels like a bit of a misfit in her neighborhood and in school because her experiences are not like any of the kids she hangs out with.
One night she goes to a party in the neighborhood and meets up with Khalil, a childhood friend that she hasn’t seen in ages. He offers to give her a ride home. On the way to Starr’s house, they are pulled over by the police with tragic consequences, the police officer panics and shoots Khalil.
The book is about the aftermath of the shooting in Starr’s life and in the community. It is a powerful commentary on police violence, how issues of race can cloud our perception, media basis, and a host of other issues.
In The Hate U Give, Thomas captures the raw emotions surrounding issues of race and police brutality exquisitely. Painting the characters in the book as one-dimensional stereotypes to fit into societies preconceived ideas would be the easy way out, but Thomas never does that. These characters have nuance. They aren’t all good or all bad. They struggle with their own weaknesses and morals. They are portrayed with compassion and depth, helping the reader to sympathize with a hopeless drug addict as much as with a smart high school student.
I’ve seen writing about this book calling it a BLM book. Looking at some of the negative reviews, I think that has made some people assume that the book bashes the police. That is a ridiculous assumption that goes more into politics than I’d like to get into on this page, but I will say that the police are not portrayed as evil brutes in this book. They are just as human as everyone else.
I think that if you want to read a book that discusses issues that Americans should be discussing anyway, you should definitely read The Hate U Give. It is an example of how YA books can make an impact in our society.
Click here if you want to find out more about The Hate U Give.