The Hate U Give Sparknotes

How Starr Grows
“‘Everybody wants to talk about how Khalil died,’ I say. ‘But this isn’t about how Khalil died. It’s about the fact that he lived. His life mattered. Khalil lived!’ I look at the cops again. ‘You hear me? Khalil lived!’” (Thomas 412) “The Hate U Give” is a book about a african-american teenage girl name Starr Carter, while trying to deal with the death of her childhood friends and also trying to fit in at school is putting a toll on her. While already suffering the trauma from her dead friend, Natasha, she has to deal with witnessing another one of her friends death, Khalil; having to stand up for her dead friend and trying to find out who her true friends are is going to have a big impact her life. Starr changes and grows throughout

In the beginning of the story, Starr had two identities her Garden Heights, and her Williamson Prep identity; Starr struggled trying to find out herself especially when she was in two completely different places, so she tries to act a certain way to fit in. An example of this is when the author writes “As long as I play it cool and keep to myself, I should be fine. The ironic thing is through, at Williamson I don’t have to ‘play it cool’- I’m cool by default because I’m one of the only black kids there. I have to earn coolness in Garden Heights” (Thomas 11). Later into the story she slowly starts to combined the her two identities when she is talking to her boyfriend, Chris, the author shows this by writing “‘Because,’ I croak. ‘People use it against me. Either I’m poor Starr who saw her friend get killed in a drive-by, or Starr the charity case who lives in the ghetto…’ ‘Okay, I get not telling people around school,’ he says. ‘But I’m not them. I would never use that against you. You once told me I’m the only person you could be yourself around at Williamson, but the truth is you still didn’t trust me.’” (Thomas 300) This quote shows that Starr is slowly revealing her true self to Chris. She slowly starts to show her true self to the rest of the people later into the book, and as an affect soon everyone knows who the true Starr Carter