The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a powerful novel that gives its readers insight into race relations in the United States. The central character, Starr, witnesses the shooting of a friend by a policeman. When she was 10, Natasha, one of her best friends was killed in a drive-by shooting. Needless to say she is African-American and lives in an African-American area. The story takes us through the months after the police shooting as told by Starr.
Thomas builds a completely believable world with complex characters and motivations. Starr attends a white school out of the area so she lives in two worlds and is careful to behave appropriately in each. She doesn’t bring her white friends home, doesn’t let her Dad know she has a white boyfriend, and doesn’t tell her boyfriend about the deaths she has seen. The death of Khalil leads to a change in her relations with friends at school, people in the neighbourhood and members of her extended family. The title comes from a rap and is basically saying what you sow you reap. Raps and other pop culture references mean that this is great read for its teenage audience and I highly recommend it.