The Hate U Give: Printz Honor Winner

La storia è molto bella perché mi ha fatto capire molto dei quartieri più poveri degli Usa e delle dinamiche quotidiane dei ragazzi che non avranno mai le stesse possibilità di successo dei ricchi: anche se cercano in tutti i modi di fare un salto di qualità sono sempre ostacolati dalla società e dall’autorità. Mai mettersi contro la polizia, si perde in partenza. Un libro che prende, scorre bene e fa riflettere noi adolescenti.

JUST DUCKING READ IT

I’m going to start with this–I just finished this book a little less than an hour ago, and I can already say that it has changed my life.

Angie Thomas’s book about 16-year-old Starr Carter left me speechless and crying for so many reasons, and I’m not sure I can even explain why adequately. Starr herself is written perfectly. She’s a high school junior who loves basketball, used to have a massive crush on a Jonas brother, and collects sneakers. She also loves her family, even when they embarrass or frustrate her, is a good student at the private school she attends with almost exclusively rich, white kids (one of whom is her boyfriend), and helps at her dad’s community grocery store when she can.

However, her life is very different from the ones her friends at school live. Starr is the only black girl in her junior class, lives in a poor black neighborhood that sees more than its fair share of gang violence, is the daughter of an ex-gang member who served time in prison, and saw one of her two best friends killed in a drive-by when she was ten years old.

And on the night she is with her other childhood best friend, Khalil, when he is shot in the back by a police officer, despite being unarmed and not doing anything to provoke the officer in any way, she finds herself in the middle of all the fallout from the shooting while still grieving Khalil’s death.

I’m more than a little ashamed to admit that I’m a privileged white woman in a tiny, primarily white community who has never really even given a ton of thought to the Black Lives Matter movement. I have heard the news, and I felt a piece of the injustice of it all, but prior to reading The Hate U Give, I had never really tried to imagine what the black community really felt. I’m still a privileged white woman in a tiny, primarily white community, which means that I will never really be able to understand what the black community feels, but I’m trying, and I’m trying so much harder than I ever did before.

As far as a review, I’m not sure what to say. This is young adult fiction, so I knew it wouldn’t be the level of writing to which I’m accustomed. However, Angie Thomas still did an excellent job of creating living, breathing characters and thought-provoking text that made me grab my highlighter many times as I read. The teenagers spoke exactly as teenagers do without coming across as cliché at all, and I usually find that adult young adult writers either try TOO hard to make teenage characters sound like teenagers OR they make them sound entirely too grown up (I’m looking at you in The Fault in Our Stars, John Green. Yeah. I said it.). Thomas, however, nailed it.

Meanwhile, The Hate U Give is filled with the kind of profound statements that I never expected from young adult fiction, but they still felt completely natural and appropriate–statements that made me, as an adult, stop and question my own behaviors and thoughts. Statements like the following:

“I always said that if I saw it happen to somebody, I would have the loudest voice, making sure the world knew what went down. Now I am that person, and I’m too afraid to speak.”

“The truth casts a shadow over the kitchen–people like us in situations like this become hashtags, but they rarely get justice.”

“That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point in having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?”

When I finished this book a little while ago, I sobbed like I haven’t at the end of a book in a LONG time. I sobbed for Khalil and his community, but more so for the list of real names at the end (that’s not a spoiler…promise). There were plenty of moments in the book that made me chuckle a little that helped break up the heaviness of the book (especially when DeVante, Seven, and Starr start making fun of white people, because, let’s be honest, everything they said was true), but the weight of the truth this book made me see hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m white. I never have to worry about one of my sons being killed by the police simply for their skin color. And I will never understand that particular reality. Instead, I have been living inside my safe little bubble where I believed that ALL police officers are good and ALL police officers are just trying to do their jobs and racism is really not THAT bad in our country. I never allowed myself to see that SOME police officers are downright racist, and SOME police officers are scared of young, black men simply because they are young, black men, and people of color ARE treated differently, and ANY racism IS that bad.

The Hate U Give started changing all that. It enabled me to step into the shoes of a 16-year-old black girl who saw her childhood best friend shot simply because he was young, black, and in a neighborhood with a bad reputation. It also enabled me to see that the lives behind the news headlines are so much more complicated than I am often led to believe, but Angie Thomas never did any of that in a way that placed all the blame on the police. The blame was definitely there, but Starr also acknowledges that there are still a lot of good police officers who don’t agree with the actions of their colleagues, and although she helped me to understand the sentiment behind rioting, she also acknowledges that the damage done by rioting is usually to her own community only. And underneath it all, Angie Thomas makes it clear that Starr’s community had its own problems from within that were not the fault of the police at all. Instead of placing blame on ANYONE, Angie Thomas is making readers see that there are definitely two sides to every story, and for most of us, we have only REALLY heard one of them.

I know I’m a little late to the program with this one as I’ve been hearing people gush about this book for quite a while already — and rightly so! I just finished it and what an amazing story! Though The Hate U Give is marketed as a Young Adult book, I feel that this inspiring book that should be on everyone’s TBR list — regardless of age, gender or race.

–The Setting —

The story revolves around and is told from the point of view of Star Carter, a 16 year old black girl who is trying to live in two different worlds: one being Garden Heights, the all black crime-ridden neighborhood where she lives and grew up in — and the other being Williamson Prep, the predominately white upper middle-class high school to which her parents send her and her two brothers.

While at school, she carefully measures her behavior, limits her slang and generally portrays an easy-going attitude as she tries to fit in with her rich white schoolmates. She even has a white boyfriend, Chris, whose existence she’s not yet told her father about because she’s worried he’ll judge her for dating a boy who isn’t black.

Though it can be challenging at times, Staar is always careful to keep her two worlds separate.


–Her Family —

Staar has a great relationship with her family and it’s evident that she loves them. Her mother works at the hospital and is an excellent role model of a strong, no-nonsense woman. Her father, a former gang member, is now a respected member of the community having left his gang life behind and now works hard to provide for his children and be a positive role model for them. He owns the neighborhood grocery store at which Staar helps out from time to time.

But things aren’t easy for Staar and her family. She lives in a neighborhood where drive-by shootings, drug lords, gang leaders, and turf wars are a part of everyday life.


–The Incident —

But one night her world is shattered when she and her childhood best friend Khalil are pulled over by a policeman for a routine traffic stop. The officer pulls Khalil out of the car and, even though Khalil was unarmed and made no threatening moves toward the officer, the policeman shoots him in the back three times, killing him.

So Staar ends up being the only witness to what actually happened — and her life and the life of those around her entirely change as a result. Though traumatized and enraged, Staar is faced with a choice: stay silent or accept who she truly is in order to obtain justice for Khalil.

Now I will say that the scene of Khalil’s murder is horrifying and gut-wrenching, and regretfully, not uncommon, as many of us have seen on the news far too often in recent times. Still, that didn’t make it this part of the book any easier — or less heartbreaking — to read.

The young man’s funeral was equally heart-hurting, as we saw firsthand how destroyed his family and friends were. Instead of reading a byline in a newspaper or hearing a brief clip on the television, we are fully immersed in the situation in this story and are placed in the shoes of those who are directly involved. In this way, the story was so raw and so real that at times, I forgot that I was reading fiction.

The author did an excellent job of bringing this story to life, allowing us to empathize with everyone involved. We read about the challenging issues facing the black community in the news, but this novel brought them to life for the reader, allowing us to see the lives behind the new bylines. In this way, we can’t help but realize that things are often a lot more complicated and multilayered than portrayed by the media.

–The Aftermath —

Still grieving Khalil’s death, Staar is put in an extremely tough position given that she’s the only witness to the incident. Though it may seem clear to an outsider of what the best course of action is for her to take, things are not always as easy and clear-cut as they may seem — and it’s uncertain how we would react or not react if we found ourselves in a similar situation.

Following the aftermath of the shooting, I felt the author did an excellent job of portraying the fear, confusion, rage, and mistrust that Staar experiences as she processes her friend’s brutal murder and through it all, tries to find herself and her voice in the middle of the fallout. But not only that, we see firsthand how such a violent, tragic and senseless loss can shake a community to its core.

–The Police —

Though the officer clearly was at fault here, I felt that the author didn’t demonize the police or place all of the blame on them. Yes, there are definitely some bad police officers out there, but there are also good ones.

In fact, Staar’s uncle was a police officer who, on more than one occasion, let her know that not all of the officers at his precinct are trigger-happy racists and that many of his fellow officers vehemently disagreed with the action of their corrupt colleague and those like him.

–My Verdict —

The Hate U Give is phenomenal. This is the brutally honest kind of book that will stay with you for a long time after having read it and perhaps may cause you to look at life differently after having read it. At the very least, it may cause us to question that which we’ve come to accept as “normal”. This was a gripping story that not only packed an emotional punch but was also an excellent fictional treatment of real-life racial issues facing America today.

Though Ms. Thomas openly treats the issue of police brutality, she also demonstrates in a very real way the day to day violence plaguing inner-city neighborhoods. This is a timely book whose importance cannot be overstated.

Though the book deals with heavy issues and is not always comfortable to read, there are plenty of light and fun parts as well — especially the often amusing scenes in which Staar interacts with her friends and family. While the book will make you cry, it will, in places, make you laugh with joy as well.

Throughout the book, the author weaves in themes of police brutality, racial profiling, hard choices, injustice, white privilege how young black men get pressured into dealing drugs, the challenges of living in gang-ridden neighborhoods, the everyday violence and danger that people living inner-city neighborhoods face — and does it with expert storytelling.

This is an honest and compelling book that I hope will be around and in people’s minds for many years to come. Definitely a 5-star read for me. Recommended!!!

This review was originally posted on my blog at rogerhyttinen.com.