Sunday, October 14, 2018

THE HATE U GIVE




Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org
 
 
THE SUNDAY FAMILY READ


The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas, HarperCollins, 2017, 444 pp
 
 
I chose to read this Young Adult novel for Banned Books Week. It was on the list of the most challenged books in 2018. It won several awards and was nominated for slews of others. The movie adaptation will be in theaters on October 19th. It is amazingly well written for a first novel.

Starr Carter is a sixteen-year-old African American girl living between two worlds. She resides in a poor neighborhood where her father runs a grocery story and her mother works at a medical clinic. She attends a top of the line prep school in an affluent area of her unnamed city. 

One night she runs into her childhood best friend at a party. They go for a drive and are pulled over for no reason by a white police officer who shoots Khalil in the back for no other good reason.

Starr's uncle on her mother's side is also a police officer. Thus follows a months long story during which Starr finds her voice, her courage, and tries to do the right things while she mourns her friend and her neighborhood goes up in flames due to gang violence, protests and unrelenting media attention.

Angie Thomas brought the things we see in the news to full life with all the nuances of the stuff that African Americans must navigate no matter how hard they try and no matter what paths they choose. Starr is portrayed realistically as the teenager she is who has to deal with so many conflicts and hard questions that would more than challenge a grown woman.

The lies about Khalil in the press, the threats against her family by a local drug lord, the confusing past of her own parents, combine with the fact that she is the only living person, besides the trigger happy cop, who knows what really happened on that fateful night. No matter what she says or doesn't say, she could endanger herself, her family and her community.

I loved many things about the book but two of those things stand out. By making Starr and her friends completely believable teens, I felt every sentence was true. By not talking down at all to a young adult audience, Angie Thomas wrote possibly one of the best books I have read in the genre. 


(The Hate U Give is available in a movie tie-in hardcover edition on the shelves at Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

12 comments:

  1. Sounds like a must read for sure!! I have this novel in my wishlist and hope to get to it some day. I am glad this book lived up to its hype.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was so glad it lived up to the hype! Though when I saw how many awards she was nominated for and got I figured it must have been something special.

      Delete
  2. This is certainly a book that tells an important story. I hope it gets the audience that it deserves, and, unfortunately, I can understand why its number of challenges put it on the Banned Books Week list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it has gotten that audience and the movie will only give it more.

      Delete
  3. Did you see the trailer of the movie? It's very powerful; I hope the movie is just as good. Anyways, I'm glad you thought the book deserving all the awards. A long time ago I would have thought that the police shooting a man for no good reason was too unbelievable a plot, but after what we have seen repeatedly in the news...It's all too real!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I saw a bit of the trailer this morning. I would like to see it in the theater but may not be able to fit it in. Yes, a big dose of reality in this one.

      Delete
  4. A very timely story. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for running the Books You Loved feature on your blog!

      Delete
  5. I'd like to see the movie version.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow one of the best books in the YA genre -- that's saying something. Good to know it lived up to all the hype, thanks!

    ReplyDelete