The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Starr, who is black (it's important), has had a mixed bag of life experiences.  She has now watched two of her best friends be gunned down and killed in the "ghetto" where she lives.  (Note: she goes to school at an affluent school an hour away because her parents don't want her in Garden Heights.)  Once when she was younger and again later in life when her best friend Khalil was shot and kill by "115" - a white police officer.  She was in the car and had the gun pointed on her after Khalil lay dead in the street.  This book is her story.  It's about how the people in her neighborhood just want to be seen as equals to everyone else.  Which, honestly, isn't much to ask but seems to be asking for the world.  Star has to face a grand jury, riots, her dad's wrath about her white boyfriend, and gang leaders/drug dealers. She also wants to give Khalil a face of who he was and not what the media shows.  Her brothers, sort-of sister, and parents, plus others in the neighborhood, are pulled into all of it with her.

She wants people to know that "he lived" and because of this his death, and he, matters.

As it turns out, my skin lacks eumelanin.  What does that mean?  Well, it means I'm WHITE.  It also means I've been bestowed certain privileges in life that people with more eumelanin (read: darker skin) have not.  What are some of these?  I've never had a conversation with my parents about the way to behave appropriately around law enforcement.  I've never had someone expect certain (negative) behavior from me simply because of my skin pigmentation.  I've never had someone cross on the other side of the street simply because they don't want to be near me.

Make you uncomfortable for me to say that?  Well, then I'd say you need to read this book.  I, in my (thankfully pretty distant) past acted in ways that I know now was at best marginally racist and at worst flat out racist.  Life experience has changed me and I have become a much more understanding, open-minded, not racist person who just loves.  (Or at least I’m pretty sure I have.) But, reading this book gave me a bigger glimpse into the stories we hear.  The other side of the story that isn't portrayed.  AND IT IS SUPER IMPORTANT TO HEAR.  If people can't listen and understand each other, how will we ever get past this insanity all because we look a little different than our neighbor?

There are also some amazing quotes in this book, too.  Here are some favorites:

“At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.” 

“I can't change where I come from or what I've been through, so why should I be ashamed of what makes me, me?” 

“Once you've seen how broken someone is it's like seeing them naked—you can't look at them the same anymore.” 

Seriously, the more you think you don't want to read this book, the more you need to sit down, open your mind, and read this book.  I listened to the Audible version and the narrator was amazing.  It's going to be a movie.  I want to go see it.


464 pages/11h40m