Book Summary: The Hate U Give By Angie Thomas

“The Hate U Give” is a young adult fiction novel by Angie Thomas and it is 444 pages long. I chose this climactic novel because I was looking for a book that would be relevant to today's current events and would contain two diverse perspectives and nationalities. As a member of the “read once a year club” my preconception of any novel is that it will probably be boring and watching a movie would be easier. However, from reading the first page, the authors sensational first person style of writing got me hooked and drew me in to read the whole novel within four days. Thomas writes as if she’s inside the mind of a black teenager, with her use of accurate teen lingo and slang. Inspired by the black lives matter movement, her immense use of detail

The African American Garden Heights self and her primarily white, Williamson Prep private school self. Double consciousness refers to the psychological challenge of African Americans in a European-dominated society whose identities are being separated into many parts. Garden Heights was a impoverished and “ghetto” community where Starr lived. She went to a white majority private school because it offered more opportunities than the high school in her neighborhood. Throughout the novel, she points out the different versions of herself by saying things like the "Williamson Starr doesn’t use slang—if a rapper would say it, she [wouldn’t] say it...slang makes her hood.” and also “Williamson Starr holds her tongue when people piss her off so nobody will think she's the angry black girl... Williamson Starr doesn't give anyone a reason to call her ghetto” (Thomas 71). Starr feels torn between ensuring she isn’t “too white” at home and isn’t “too black” at school because most of her classmates are white and her neighbors are African American. Starr's friends judge her based on what environment she’s in for example in Williamson Prep “[she’s] cool by default because [she’s] one of the only black kids there. Where as [she has] to earn [her] coolness in Garden Heights…”(Thomas

Like in the chapter two, when Officer One-fifteen shoots Khalil, her childhood friend, in front of her face as she was blinking her tears back, he “yells at [Starr] pointing the same gun he killed [her] friend with” (Thomas 24). In that moment, I had empathy for her and could share her feeling of shock and distress. Thomas’ ability to convey the protagonists emotions also helped me understand the difficult lifestyle of impoverished individuals and unjust police brutality that is occurring today. If not for this novel, I would have remained in my orange county bubble of safety and wealth. Early on, the novel opened my eyes to the unfair criminalization of black youth. The reason for the officer pulling over these teens was for a broken taillight but even though they posed no threat, Khalil was shot and killed anyway. They weren’t given the benefit of the doubt, because there is a strong preconception that all African American and minority groups are dangerous and often regarded as threats. Then afterwards, the media tried to justify the officers wrongdoings by making Khalil appear like a thug who was “a suspected drug dealer. They didn't even mention that he was unarmed” (Thomas 104). I would recommend this book to everyone of any age but it would mostly benefit the younger generation of teens because maybe it will inform them of the real