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Now, I usually don’t like to read realistic books like this because I tend to use my books as a getaway from reality, but I heard how great this novel was so I decided to give it a chance. All I can say about this book is that it is such a powerful and dimensional book this was. Angie Thomas narrates using a sixteen-year-old girl named Starr, and because of that choice, she can use an informal vernacular that makes it easy for her to tell the story in a way that sounds as if you were talking to a friend. All of the characters in The Hate U Give are so realistic that it seemed as though I could walk down the street and meet Starr herself. The story of a young girl that has to go through a situation like Starr had to, is powerful because currently, situations like what happened to Kahlil are not that uncommon. Angie Thomas even includes the names of those that ended up like Kahlil at the end of the novel for the perspective of the readers.
I personally relate with Starr because I often find myself in situations as she did in dealing with balancing two different worlds. I don’t come from a neighborhood like her but being a black woman with a lighter complexion I often find myself in positions where I’m too “black” to hang around my white friends and too “white” to hang around my black friends. On top of being what history deems “mulatto“, I take predominantly white classes. Occasionally someone will say something racist and look over at me to see if I heard it. I hear and ignore the comments most of the time because, like Starr, I can recognize that if I lash out, I immediately become the “angry black girl.”
This book made me cry due to the realization of how deep the problem is and how we all just overlook something happening that’s so terrible but it also made me smile and laugh when scenes came up that I know would happen to me- I mean who says “Tar-jay” and puts breadcrumbs on Mac and Cheese!
The situation of black people being killed for Living While Black is not going away, it’s getting worse because people are choosing to ignore what’s happening right under their noses because “it’s not their problem.” The massacre and mass incarceration of minority groups is not just the problem of minority groups! In the words of Tupac Shakur, The Hate U Give Little Infants F***s Everyone.
Get your copy of The Hate U Give and other books by Angie Thomas here!
Synopsis (According to my understanding/opinion)
Part one: WHEN IT HAPPENS
Starr Carter is a 16 year old girl that lives in Garden Heights, a predominantly black neighborhood rich in only crime and thug life. After witnessing the murder of one of her best friends at the young age of ten, Starr is sent to attend a private school full of rich preppy predominantly white students, Williamson. Starr has been able to code-switch between her two very different worlds pretty easily until her perception of those worlds are shattered after witnessing the murder of another one of her friends after attending a party. Big D’s spring break party was an event that everyone who was anyone in Garden Heights attended and because her friend Kenya wanted someone to go with Starr regretfully went to. In order to get the full picture of what Starr felt like going to this huge party, I would imagine Alessia cara’s Here. While at the party she gets abandoned by her friends and meets up with her old friend, Kahlil, right before gunshots go off and fighting starts. Wanting to get her out of there, Kahlil offers to take Starr home or to her family grocery store and they get into his car. On the way Kahlil hears police sirens and pulls over. Kahlil follows all of the police’s instructions, until he’s told to stay where is, Kahlil walks over to ask Starr if she’s okay when he’s shot three times by the officer. Starr rushes out of the car and holds her friend in her arms as he bleeds out.
Starr goes to work the next day. LIfe goes on as if nothing happened but it haunts Star as she sleeps. Awaked by nightmares, Starr walks to her kitchen to overhear her parents and uncle, a police officer, talking about investigating what happened with Kahlil. Starr agrees to visit Kahlil’s grandmother in the morning and to serve as a witness in the case the next day. Before she witnesses to the police, Starr goes back to school and attends all of her classes. She meets with her boyfriend, who she’s mad at because he pulled out a condom during their makeout session, and has a minor freak out when he touches her due to a flashback of seeing white skin killing Kahlil. After school Starr visits her mother at the clinic where she works and sees Brenda, Kahlil’s negligent mother, Starr can’t understand why Brenda is sobbing over a dead son she never seemed to care about until she looked into her eyes and realizes that Kahlil’s death affected everyone and even if Brenda wasn’t there for her son, she still cared about him.
Starr goes with her mother to the police station to give a testimony about what happened to Kahlil and during the interview notices that the officers try to put words into her mouth to give reason as to why Kahlil was shot. A few days later Starr and her family attend Kahlil’s funeral where Starr describes Kahlil’s body as a mannequin that has been dressed up. The King Lords, a local gang, intervene to put a grey bandanna on Kahlil’s body as a sign that he was a member, but are quickly kicked out when Kahlil’s grandmother denies that Kahlil was gang related. On the way out of the door a woman named April Ofrah approaches her family and tells Starr that she works with Just Us for Justice and offer to act as a defense attorney for Starr. After the news that Kahlil was unarmed when he was shot spreads, riots break out all over Garden Heights and the neighborhood turns into a war zone after the police announced that they will not be taking the officer that murdered Kahlil into custody.
Regardless of what’s happening in the neighborhood, Starr and her half-brother, Seven, leave in the morning to play basketball and the reader is first introduced to DeVante, a young King Lord that comes to Starr and Seven’s rescue when Garden Disciples (a rival gang) threaten them. When Starr and Seven’s father, Maverick, find them out in the neighborhood during the riot they both get grounded and Starr gets sent to her uncle’s house in the suburbs. Luckily for Starr, her boyfriend lives down the street and gets a chance to make amends with him after their little condom incident.
While working in her father’s grocery store, DeVante runs in seeking refuge from King (the head of the King Lords) and Maverick gives him a job to help him out. Back at her prep school, the students there are protesting Kahlil’s death for the wrong purpose, to get out of school. When Starr tries to confront her friends about how wrong it is to use someone’s death as a reason to get out of class, her friends argue that Kahlil was just a drug dealer and Starr feels a further gap between her and her friends. Starr gets back to her father’s grocery store to find a neighbor on live TV snitching on the King Lord’s drug dealing and after Maverick confronts him about snitching the police show up and hold him down for “harassment”. Starr feels as if it’s her fault that her family is being treated badly by the police because they know she’s the witness to what happened to Kahlil. When a crowd gathers and the police leave, Starr finds out that everyone knows that she was the witness that saw Kahlil get murdered and her friend, Kenya, openly calls her a coward for not doing more to help Kahlil.
Starr and her father find out the DeVante lied to them and stole 5 grand from the King Lords but instead of selling DeVante out, Maverick takes him to Starr’s uncles house so he can be safe. While over at her uncle’s house Starr’s boyfriend, Chris, pops in the check on Starr and Maverick finds out that his daughter is dating a white boy and storms out. To get away from the drama, Starr goes to her friends house down the street where Hailey supports the cop that shot Kahlil and makes a few more racist comments. The next day after Starr goes to testify again before the DA, King goes to Maverick’s grocery store and asks about DeVante. When the whole family gets home they talk about getting out of Garden Heights and moving on to a better neighborhood.
Regardless of what’s happening in the neighborhood, Starr and her half-brother, Seven, leave in the morning to play basketball and the reader is first introduced to DeVante, a young King Lord that comes to Starr and Seven’s rescue when Garden Disciples (a rival gang) threaten them. When Starr and Seven’s father, Maverick, find them out in the neighborhood during the riot they both get grounded and Starr gets sent to her uncle’s house in the suburbs. Luckily for Starr, her boyfriend lives down the street and gets a chance to make amends with him after their little condom incident.
While working in her father’s grocery store, DeVante runs in seeking refuge from King (the head of the King Lords) and Maverick gives him a job to help him out. Back at her prep school, the students there are protesting Kahlil’s death for the wrong purpose, to get out of school. When Starr tries to confront her friends about how wrong it is to use someone’s death as a reason to get out of class, her friends argue that Kahlil was just a drug dealer and Starr feels a further gap between her and her friends. Starr gets back to her father’s grocery store to find a neighbor on live TV snitching on the King Lord’s drug dealing and after Maverick confronts him about snitching the police show up and hold him down for “harassment”. Starr feels as if it’s her fault that her family is being treated badly by the police because they know she’s the witness to what happened to Kahlil. When a crowd gathers and the police leave, Starr finds out that everyone knows that she was the witness that saw Kahlil get murdered and her friend, Kenya, openly calls her a coward for not doing more to help Kahlil.
Starr and her father find out the DeVante lied to them and stole 5 grand from the King Lords but instead of selling DeVante out, Maverick takes him to Starr’s uncles house so he can be safe. While over at her uncle’s house Starr’s boyfriend, Chris, pops in the check on Starr and Maverick finds out that his daughter is dating a white boy and storms out. To get away from the drama, Starr goes to her friends house down the street where Hailey supports the cop that shot Kahlil and makes a few more racist comments. The next day after Starr goes to testify again before the DA, King goes to Maverick’s grocery store and asks about DeVante. When the whole family gets home they talk about getting out of Garden Heights and moving on to a better neighborhood.
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