The Hate U Give Delivers on the Hype

That, fortunately, is not the case for Angie Thomas’s stunner, The Hate U Give. It’s about as timely a book as you’ll ever read, and, amazingly, a fast-paced page-turner to boot. Dubbed the #BlackLivesMatter movement in novel form, THUG, the title of which is based on Tupac’s redefining and reclaiming of the word, is hardly the first to cover that ground. It’s part of a long history of books about police brutality and sanctioned violence against black bodies, including works by Walter Dean Myers and Coretta Scott King Award honorees such as Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down and Jason Reynolds’ and Brendan Kiely’s recent All-American Boys.
“I’ve seen it happen over and over again: a black person gets killed just for being black, and all hell breaks loose. I’ve tweeted RIP hashtags, reblogged pictures on Tumblr, and signed every petition out there. I always said that if I saw it happen to somebody, I would have the loudest voice, making sure the world knew what went down.
Now I am that person, and I’m too afraid to speak.”
Starr Carter’s keeping her head down, plowing ahead on the smart kid track. She lives in gang-plagued Garden Heights, not known as the safest neighborhood, but her parents send her to the posh day school Williamson Prep, making her feel like she’s living a double life. (A popular YA trope deftly employed by Sherman Alexie in his beloved The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.) She has sort of bailed on her neighborhood friends, has a (secret) white boyfriend, and feels awkward trying to explain her everyday to the kids at school, who, let’s face it, just don’t get it.
Already conflicted by her neither-here-nor-there existence, she ends up at party with an old friend, Khalil—who may or may not be a drug dealer—that gets raided. When a cop stops her and Khalil on the way home, she’s worried. Her parents have taught her from day one that whether you’ve done something wrong or not, if you’re a black kid stopped by a (white) cop, you’re in trouble. Real trouble. Potentially deadly trouble. Before she knows it, the incident has spiraled out of control, and Khalil lies dying on the pavement.
But the heart of the story is what happens in the aftermath of the shooting. Starr’s caught between the hopes and validation of an entire community and movement and the fear that has haunted her, rightfully, since she witnessed the murder of a friend—which, notably, is not the first murder she’s witnessed, at the age of 16.
Thomas’s #ownvoices debut is surefooted, deftly drawn, and chock full of moments of microaggression that will shake its readers, educating us on some of the harsher realities of black life in modern America. Starr’s voice is wry, confident, and curious, and she delivers profound insights with casual grace that’s rarely pedantic. Case in point: “Daddy once told me there’s a rage passed down to every black man from his ancestors, born the moment they couldn’t stop their slave-masters from hurting their families.”
Most compelling, perhaps, is the spiderweb of relationships Thomas builds throughout the book—intricate and complicated, each character bringing his or her own well-defined take to the conversation. There’s an impressive depth in these characters, like Starr’s proud, trying-his-best former gang member daddy and her sometimes clueless but well-meaning white boyfriend, Chris, or her school friend Hailey, whose racist take on Khalil’s life startles both Starr and the reader. But she also has a way with the minor players who people Starr’s neighborhood, bringing them alive with small insights that make them memorable.
In the beginning, Starr is just a kid: sneaker-obsessed, confused about a boy, caught between two very different circles of friends. In the end, she’s still just a kid, but a hero, too, in her own way. Is it enough?
There are no easy answers in this book. But that’s why the debut is a stunner—it will leave you thinking about it long after you finish, and with the need to talk about what you found in its pages. All the best books do.