The Hate U Give by Angie ThomasMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book gave me all the feels. All. The. Feels. The story starts with the protagonist, Star as she's attending a party with her half-sister when things go south quickly. On her way home with a friend, they are pulled over by an officer and the friend is shot dead in front of her for nothing but being concerned about Star's safety. What ensues is Star coming to terms with the death of her friend, the ensuing media circus around the event, and how she balances her home life and her school life (which are largely separate entities since she goes to a private and predominantly white school some distance from where she lives in an urban environment). But reconciling her anger with her school life is challenging as school is filled with many people that want to dismiss her friend's life as his own fault and Star is not having that.
The book reminds me how much fiction and communicate truth in that there are many many many great books out there that explore intersectionality, marginalized people, the inequality of the criminal justice system in the US, and an American culture that continually acts hostile towards people of color. These books are well-researched with ample evidence and complex arguments that trace such issues. But Thomas's novel becomes an equally powerful and transformative experience for individuals to come to understand and connect with the systematic racism present throughout the country. What Thomas does so well with her characters is that none of them are perfect and none of them are without some level of internalized racism, from Star to her parents and her friends. Thomas doesn't paint characters into a cliche of perfection but captures how nuance discussions of racism are by layering it throughout the novel in myriad ways. The end result is a book that takes readers on a journey through the life of a young African American woman who grows up in a world that sees and reacts to her and the people she loves as threats or less-than-human people.
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