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Book Review on The Christian Science Monitor

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Book Review on The Christian Science Monitor

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This book review makes an excellent summary on the importance of the book, and very well explains my feelings about it.

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Believe the hype: The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas's extraordinary and fearless debut, really is that good.

I guarantee there will be other excellent books in 2017; after all, it's only February. There will be great books without the violence, strong language, drugs, and sexual content. But I struggle to imagine a book that will topple "The Hate U Give" from its position atop the Most Important list. It's too timely and too well-written.

Starr Carter constantly shifts between two worlds. By night, she's Starr from Garden Heights, riven with gangs, drugs, and poverty. By day, she's a student at a predominantly white prep school in the wealthy suburbs where her policeman uncle lives. She has two faces, two voices, and two lives; code-switching is mandatory.

When Starr witnesses her best friend, Khalil, die in a police shooting during a routine traffic stop, the veil between her home and school selves falls. Khalil's death, and the ensuing trial of the officer who shot him, become national news and a social flashpoint. Khalil is cast as a drug-dealing gangbanger, despite Starr's testimony to the police and the fact that Khalil had neither drugs nor weapons on him.

Not long after, Starr and her school friends have a series of ugly confrontations. During a pick-up basketball game, one girl yells that Starr would be faster if she pretended the ball was fried chicken. After a brutal face-off about casual racism, and Black Lives Matter vs. All/Blue Lives Matter, the friend accuses Starr of hypersensitivity and implies that Khalil deserved to die.

Starr is at a crossroads. Does she go public with her testimony and contradict the court of public opinion? As the sole witness, Starr is the only one who can attest to what really happened. If no one says anything, will anything change? Her attorney tells her, "Your voice is your weapon." But weapons can backfire - speaking out puts her family in danger and threatens to destroy her community.

Thomas tackles the toughest topics without flinching, exploring the slow fade between fear and bravery. She writes with grit and sizzle. Her dialogue is like emotional sandpaper: It hurts and rubs you raw, but it refines. If "The Hate U Give" makes you uncomfortable, that's because it should.

The title comes from a backronym coined by rapper Tupac Shakur: T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E., or The Hate U Give Little Infants [Effs] Everybody. Simply put, hate begets hate. When you're fed a steady diet of injustice and vitriol, it destroys you from the inside. The hatred builds up, and when the pressure gets too high, the reservoir of other people's poison explodes outward.

Thomas's cast sparkles with depth and dimension. Each character is fully formed; there's nary a stock character or thoughtless trope in the bunch. Their warts-and-all relationships are electric. That's a feat in any book, let alone one addressing issues this big.

When Starr's dad is manhandled by police in front of his children and neighbors, he keeps his cool until later, when he breaks down in his office. Starr's commentary is searing: "Daddy once told me there's a rage passed down to every black man from his ancestors, born the moment they couldn't stop the slave masters from hurting their families. Daddy also said there's nothing more dangerous than when that rage is activated."

Yes, the Carters are angry. They've watched friends and family suffer for so long. But don't for a second chalk anger up as their defining characteristic. They are funny, loyal, and complicated, strong, smart, sappy, and thoughtful. Beware the reader, writer, or critic who deprives human beings of nuance and reduces them to anger alone.

Throughout the novel, Starr's parents feel as though they're forced to pit their community's future against their children's. With all that's happened, do they stay in Garden Heights or move away? This isn't the first time Starr has watched a friend die; when she was 10, her friend Natasha was killed in a drive-by.

If they stay, the Carters support their neighborhood physically, financially, and emotionally. They're a stabilizing force in a turbulent time, a vote of confidence in the potential for change. Starr's dad feels strongly that they can't abandon their community.

But if they move, they can guarantee a good education for their kids. They would live in a safe area with no drugs, no gangs, no drive-bys, and closer to the schools their kids already attend. They wrestle with the question: Can you change the trajectory of a place without living there? Their debates remind me of Nikole Hannah-Jones's article in The New York Times Magazine last summer.

I don't expect "The Hate U Give" to change every reader's mind. But at the least, it provides a window into the very real conversations happening in homes across the country. It's an opportunity for readers to evolve apathy into sympathy, and sympathy into empathy.

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'The Hate U Give' provides a window into conversations about race

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Believe the hype: The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas's extraordinary and fearless debut, really is that good. I guarantee there will be other excellent books in 2017; after all, it's only February. There will be great books without the violence, strong language, drugs, and sexual content.

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The image shows a black man being violently arrested by police officers.

This was one of the images that came up upon searching "police brutality". Police brutality is one of the topics that The Hate U Give addresses, and I say, quite well. Police brutality is a big, BIG issue, even (and especially) today. Black folks in particular are very much at risk of being a victim of police brutality.

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"The Hate U Give" Movie adaptation trailer

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"The Hate U Give" Movie adaptation trailer

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The movie adaptation of The Hate U Give, from the looks of its trailer, will stay on the same track as the book. From what I've observed from watching and reading all sorts of media, certain things are better portrayed in one medium compared to another, or have a different impact. I've come to greatly admire literary works that are good at making me visualize clearly what's happening in my head as I read, and The Hate U Give was no exception, so I'm very interested to see that imagery come to life in this movie. It's very promising and seems to stay true to the book.

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The Hate U Give | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX

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The image shows a family, visibly happy.

Another one of the sub-plots in The Hate U Give focused on Starr's family. For a good chunk of Starr's life, her father was in jail, and Starr's uncle Carlos acted as a father figure for her during that time. Her father and uncle initially don't get along, thanks to their troubled past, but as the book progresses, they learn to set the past aside and amend their relationship for the better of their entire family.

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One of the sub-plots in the book, though it isn't necessarily the focus, is the issue of Starr and one of her friends. Her friend makes multiple racist comments, and more so following the death of Khalil, to where Starr silently debates if she should even be friends with her anymore. By the end of the book, Starr chooses to cut her off, a good choice considering the "friend"'s racism and refusal to apologize or change.

This reminded me of one of my own experiences, concerning me and a former friend (and partner) of mine. The ex, did lots of things during our partnership that were, frankly, incredibly bad. Some of these things where constantly demanding my attention, guilt-tripping me, and manipulating me. I broke up with them for different reasons, though; mostly because I was realizing that that kind of relationship just wasn't for me, and the whole thing was causing me a lot of anxiety. It wasn't until after I broke up with them that I realized all the messed up stuff they did. Analyzing the situation, I decided to cut them off, because in all honesty they weren't a very good friend.

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The illustration on the cover of the book. It shows (presumably) Starr holding a sign with the book's title on it. The words are aligned-left, showing how the title is part of (one half of) an acronym, THUG.

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There are multiple themes in the book, one concerning the big issue of racism, another with the importance of family, and one last one about who is and isn’t your friend. The big one, racism, is the face and running force of the book; it is conveyed that racism is something that has, unfortunately, taken root almost everywhere, but if we work together and fight hard we can put it down. I believe the author wrote this to talk about that subject, because it’s something that needs to be talked about. As one review on the back puts it, “If  The Hate U Give makes you uncomfortable, that’s because it should.”
Another theme is about family and the importance of family to stick together, because family is stronger together. Throughout the book, the relationship between Starr’s dad and her uncle Carlos is initially bad, but as the book progresses it is tested and amended.

One last yet smaller theme in the book is that true friends are respectful of each other. Following Khalil’s death, one of Starr’s friends, Hailey, says poor things about his death, and also says other racist things that she refuses to apologize for, saying Starr is overreacting. After Starr talks with another one of her friends, Maya, who is Asian, about the whole situation, Starr finds that Hailey has been saying racist things about Maya as well, and after confronting Hailey about it Starr finally makes the choice to cut her off.

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An image of a riot.

Towards the end of the book, after Starr gives an interview about the shooting that hits national news, S

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During the riot that Starr, Seven, DeVante and Chris attend, Starr notices letters saying "BLACK OWNED" in black spray paint on the boarded up windows of the Just Us for Justice building. These signs are on any boarded up black-owned business during the riots, a way of letting know to rioters not to damage the building..