Discrimination.
Racism.
Gangs, drugs, and territory.
The same story, just a different century.
And Starr Carter is sick and tired of it, but it’s her everyday life.
“The Hate U Give” is a young adult book by Angie Thomas that centers around Starr Thomas and her life in two worlds. There’s Garden Heights Starr, who can use slang and be herself at home, and then there’s Williamson Starr, who is harmless, a good student, and always had cool shoes. Starr does all she can to keep these two worlds entirely separate, but both lives erupt into chaos after Starr witnesses her childhood friend Khalil shot and killed by a police officer.
Suddenly Khalil’s name and face are everywhere, and rumors about him being in a gang or dealing drugs circulate around. All the questions that arise over Khalil can’t be answered by anyone but Starr, the sole witness. While the wall between her two worlds crumbles down, Starr has to decide if doing what she thinks is right is worth the devastating consequences.
The emotions felt by Starr are something that really drew me into the book while I was reading. It was gut-wrenching to read someone my age go through everything Starr did throughout the events that occurred throughout the book.
Not only is the topic really interesting to read, but it’s also relevant as well. Police brutality, protests, and innocent deaths are things that happen all too often in the U.S., and around the world, right now.
As a teenage white girl who lives in the suburbs, I can’t comment on what happens to the people of Garden Heights, or Starr herself, but the message it sends is incredibly important. Standing up for what is right, what you believe in, is quite possibly the most courageous thing anyone can do, but also the most difficult, and the struggles of finding out how Starr comes to terms with her resolve to bring Kalil to justice do just that.
Conversely, it does make the book hard to relate to, as I’ve experienced almost none of the events in the book. Because of that, the book probably didn’t affect me emotionally as much as others who can relate to it more.
Yet that didn’t inhibit how much I enjoyed reading the book, or how much I felt after reading it. “The Hate U Give” is really thought-provoking, and it needs to be because this is important and more people need to realize that.
All in all, I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone who wants to read it, especially because “The Hate U Give” is slated to be the school-wise summer reading book for the class of 2019–2020.
