Review: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

To celebrate February being Black History Month, I thought I’d review one of my favorite books, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I’ve read this book a few different times, and each time I come away feeling like I’ve learned something. It’s a story that I believe is worth revisiting, seeing as it’s one that can play out (and has, and continues to do so) in the world we live in.

The Hate U Give follows 16-year-old Starr Carter as she deals with the aftermath of her best friend, Khalil Harris’, shooting. Khalil was unarmed, but after a police officer mistakes his hairbrush for a gun, Khalil is shot and killed, with Starr (the only witness) beside him and unable to help. She watches Khalil's death become national news, and must decide whether to speak up about what happened or remain silent. The choices she makes could be dangerous, affecting both her personal life and the lives of everyone in her community.

For those of you familiar with the concept of books as windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors, this book acts as a window for readers like me. I am not a person of color, and I cannot know firsthand what being Black in America is like. Privilege can often be invisible to those of us who have it, but this book helped open my eyes to experiences I will never have. I couldn’t relate to many of the things Starr went through, but then, that’s exactly the point.

For many other readers, this book is a mirror. The Hate U Give was published in 2017. To contextualize the amount of representation Black readers had around that time, you can check out the CCBC's diversity statistics or this infographic from 2018. Clearly, there is a lack of representation for Black readers and other people of color. This is just one reason why it is so important to amplify authors of color who write OwnVoices literature.

The notion of community is really strong in this book, and it’s perhaps my favorite of the themes that we see throughout the story. There’s the tightly-knit community of garden heights, where Starr lives, which, despite the influence of gang violence, is able to (small spoiler?) rebuild after riots wreak havoc around them. There’s also Starr’s school, Williamson, in which she’s one of the only non-white students and deals with code-switching and conforming to an identity that doesn’t wholly feel like herself.

The community that I enjoyed reading about the most, though, was Starr’s family. It was refreshing to see a YA heroine that had a good relationship with both parents and multiple siblings. Family is really important to the Carters, and that’s exemplified throughout the novel. Starr’s uncle Carlos being a cop added another layer of complexity to the story as she confronts him about what he would have done, had he been in his colleague’s situation.

I was also able to see the film adaptation of The Hate U Give. I liked it enough, and I thought Amandla Stenberg was great as Starr, but ultimately I felt that the book did a more eloquent job of conveying Thomas’ main ideas. However, it’s interesting to note that there were film rights being discussed before the book was actually published. Different publishing houses were at odds with each other fighting for the rights to this book (HarperCollins won, for those wondering; this is a Balzer + Bray book). To me, this signifies how important this story is.

The ending of the book is one that gracefully and powerfully connects Thomas’ fiction with reality. It has always been one of my favorite aspects of the book, and this is coming from a reader who typically doesn’t enjoy endings. It reminds the reader that even though The Hate U Give is a story about one particular boy who was killed, racism is an institutional issue, and it’s every bit about the system as it is about the individual. I don’t think there’s any way I could better explain than to simply insert an excerpt from those last couple of pages.

“It would be easy to quit if it was just about me, Khalil, that night, and that cop. It’s about way more than that though. It’s about Seven. Sekani. Kenya. DeVante.

It’s also about Oscar.

Aiyana.

Trayvon.

Rekia.

Michael.

Eric.

Tamir.

John.

Esell.

Sandra.

Freddie.

Alton.

Philando.

It’s even about that little boy in 1955 who nobody recognized at first - Emmett.

The messed up part? There are so many more.”

If you’re looking for more YA books to read during black history month (or really any time of year), Underlined put together a list of books that celebrate black history and culture to get you started! Click here if you’re interested!