Book Summary: The Hate U Give By Angie Tomas

The Hate U Give by Angie Tomas is about Starr Carter who is split between two worlds. She has one side of her life that takes place in Garden Heights, which is the poor black neighborhood where she has grown up and where her family lives. The other world is the mostly white fancy prep school that she attends called Williamson. The book opens with Starr attending a Garden Heights party where she runs into her childhood best friend, Khalil. After gunshots are fired at the party, she and Khalil leave in his car and they are pulled over by a white police officer. The result of this is Khalil being shot and killed by the police officer and Starr being the only witness to this event. Khalil was an unarmed teenager and this, of course, incites a lot

I appreciated Starr’s uncle, Carlos, and how his character tried to bring the police offer’s side of the story to light. A lot of people are so quick to dehumanize police officers when it comes to a teenager’s death and the color of their skin. Of course I don’t believe Khalil deserved to die, but he could have easily prevented this outcome because in reality he did so much wrong in that particular situation. If he would have been completely compliant from the start, odds are this story would have gone differently. His first mistake was running his mouth over something so simple. I understand he felt as though he did nothing wrong and that he was being profiled. That very well may have been the case, but it is standard procedure to intervene when something may appear suspicious: possibly the time of night, age, and maybe the fact that they had just left a party and were coming from a direction where shots were fired moments prior. The second, biggest mistake was getting out of the vehicle even though the officer dragged him out. Khalil attempted to get out of the vehicle on his own terms first. He then moved from where the officer told him to wait. This action would be alarming to any officer because at this point if a person is not following directions and not complying, there’s usually a good reason for it. Everyone knows this is something you just don’t do because it will never end well for