Monday, October 2, 2017

The Hate U Give

Cover image for The Hate U Give
The Hate U Give
by Angie Thomas
Balzer + Bray, 2017, 444 pages, Young Adult Fiction

After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died.

This book has been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for months now, and has been getting amazing reviews, so I finally decided to give the book a try even though the book’s description wasn’t something that really appealed to me. I’d like to challenge you to do the same. Like the March trilogy by John Lewis (here are links to books One, Two and Three), I consider this book to be an important story that everyone should read.

While March talked about the history of racism in the U.S., The Hate U Give shows (a fictional account of) where we are on this topic today. That means this book doesn’t hold back. It’s a tough and sometimes shocking read, but it does a great job of describing just how complicated the Black Lives Matter movement and all it entails is. The really impressive part of this book is that most of the discussion of the issues was shown instead of told in a way that really helped me understand things better. Starr is also an extremely relatable character, and I found myself rooting for her and her family to succeed. Despite the dark circumstances, this book also has a light-hearted side, and I appreciated seeing the small endearing moments that bound Starr and her family and friends together. Angie Thomas deserves a lot of praise for being brave enough to write this book.

MB

1 comment:

Larissa Andersen said...

I too really enjoyed Angie Thomas' novel, despite the fact that at times it made me slightly uncomfortable. I think it's important to admit that for me, uncomfortability equals growth. The subject of the book is too serious and significant to ignore. I enjoyed being able to experience this (fictional) part of the actual Black Lives Matter movement through Starr's perspective. I was rooting for her and her family from beginning to end. Additionally, I highly recommend the audiobook because the narrator, Bahni Turpin, is phenomenal.

LKA