The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

 

The Hate U Give

Bibliography

Thomas, Angie.  2017.  The Hate U Give.  New York, NY: Balzer + Bray.  ISBN 9780062498533

Plot Summary

Starr Carter is a sixteen year old girl torn between two worlds:  her home in Garden Heights where her father was a former gang member, and her school, Williamson, which is predominantly white.  Her parents started sending her to a prep school after she witnessed her best friend get killed in a drive-by shooting at age ten.  Sadly, Starr witnesses the murder of another childhood friend, Khalil, at the hands of a white police officer when they are pulled over after leaving a party.  The officer claimed he thought Khalil was reaching for a gun, when in reality he was checking on Starr, and the supposed "gun" the officer saw was actually a hairbrush.  The police officer is not charged with Khalil's murder despite Starr's statement to the police, and she is torn between her wish to keep the fact that she was the witness a secret from her community and her sense of responsibility to stand up for Khalil.  She eventually agrees to appear anonymously on a national news program and recount the events of that night, and the case is brought to a grand jury, where she again testifies that she and Khalil did no wrong.  Starr's two worlds collide when the grand jury upholds the original decision not to charge the officer; she and her Garden Heights friends along with her prep school boyfriend end up among the protests and riots that broke out in Garden Heights after the verdict.  She speaks out to the crowd as the witness, revealing the fact that she was the witness to the national news cameras. 

Critical Analysis

The character development in this book is incredible, and we feel like we are there with Starr experiencing her life.  We see her two sides, Garden Heights Starr and Williamson Starr, and we feel the conflict inside her for having two versions of herself.  At the end of the book when her two worlds collide and she breaks down her wall to Chris at prom, she is finally able to just be herself, just Starr Carter.  She stands up to her fake friend Hailey, again at her mom's advice, because Hailey wanted only to be friends with Williamson Starr; after reconciling her two selves, there was no place for Hailey in Starr's life.  This book also gives us a glimpse into the hard choices that people living in poverty and in gang neighborhoods must make.  Yes Khalil did sell drugs, but his options were limited and he was trying to save his family.  I don't know that I would have made a different choice in his situation.

There are two powerful quotes in this book, both by Starr's mother, that to me are messages for everyone, no matter what race.  In the book they apply to Starr standing up for Khalil, but these words could be applied to any situation.  When Starr is about to testify in front of the grand jury, her mother tells Starr, who doesn't feel very brave, that "brave doesn't mean you're not scared....it means you go on even though you're scared."  In reference to the police officer not being charged, Starr's mother tells her "sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong.  They key is to never stop doing right." These two messages and her mother's strength really help Starr make the difficult choices she made regarding what to do with her witness status. 

Awards & Review Excerpts

2018 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book

2018 Printz Award Honor

2018 Odyssey Award Winner

2018 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Winner

2018 William C Morris Debut Award Winner

2017 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winner

2017 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature Finalist

 

Voice of Youth Advocates Star 2/1/2017 by Loryn Aman.

"Starr’s struggles create a complex character, and Thomas boldly tackles topics like racism, gangs, police violence, and interracial dating. Authenticity is critical in novels, and Thomas delivers an authentic plot with realistic, relatable characters. This novel educates readers from any background about the police brutality and racism that led to the Black Lives Matter movement. This topical, necessary story is highly recommended for all libraries."

 

Publisher's Weekly Starred 11/28/2016 by Brooks Sherman

"Starr’s voice commands attention from page one, a conflicted but clear-eyed lens through which debut author Thomas examines Khalil’s killing, casual racism at Williamson, and Starr’s strained relationship with her white boyfriend. Though Thomas’s story is heartbreakingly topical, its greatest strength is in its authentic depiction of a teenage girl, her loving family, and her attempts to reconcile what she knows to be true about their lives with the way those lives are depicted—and completely undervalued—by society at large."

 

Connections

I think this book would be incredible about sparking discussions about empathy with students, which is something that is missing from much of today's society.  We would all benefit from asking ourselves what we would do in Khalil's situation, needing to protect his family.  Readers might also enjoy All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, ISBN 9781481463331, which is also a book about police brutality, or Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas, ISBN 9780062846716, which is the story of Starr's father, Maverick Carter.