The Hate U Give

by Angie Thomas
 Balzer + Bray     2017
444 pages     YA

I was driving a young African American woman who is on the periphery of our family to a play we were going to see together. She is currently living with grandparents as she goes to community college. On our way, she told me that she had been at a party the night before at a Motel 6. Apparently there had been a lot of drugs, alcohol and sex. One of her "friends" had accused her of making out with the friend's boyfriend. A fight broke out. and at 4:00 a.m., she placed an emergency call to her grandpa who came to rescue her. She said, "I was scared that someone might have a gun or someone might call the police." I said to her, "Are these your friends?" She responded that no, just the girl she went to the party with--the one that caused the fight. I told her that I wasn't sure she needed friends like this. She agreed that she had been too scared to let that happen again. We'll see.

This story was fresh in my mind when I began reading The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, one of the most devastating and powerful books I have ever read. The book begins with Starr at a party, very similar to the one I just described. She is not sure how or why she got to the party. When shots ring out, she escapes the party with her childhood friend, Khalil. On the way home from the party, Khalil is stopped by the police, shot, and killed. It is horrible and breathtaking. Even more devastating, this is not the first killing that Star has witnessed.

Starr is 16, Black, a member of an intact family, living in an African American neighborhood of an unnamed city. Her parents are living the best lives they can--the mother a nurse and the father, the owner of a convenience store. One of the first teenaged things the children are taught is how to react if they are stopped by police. The parents' concern for their children extends to sending them to a mostly white private school in the suburbs. Starr's mother wants to move away from the ghetto neighborhood, but Starr's father feels that they can do more for the neighborhood if they stay and work hard at the store to upgrade the neighborhood. Here is a remarkable quote from Starr about living in one world and going to school in another. When she has to speak to the police following the shooting of Khalil, she muses, "My voice is changing already. It always happens around 'other' people, whether I'm at Williamson (her school) or not. I don't talk like me or sound like me. I choose every word carefully and make sure I pronounce them well. I can never, ever let anyone think I'm ghetto."

The plot following the shooting concerns Starr's response to being the eye-witness. It exposes the entire Black Lives Matter movement, police brutality, moral and ethical choices, and how young African American teenagers negotiate a world filled with fear, violence, and bad choices. One of the most remarkable aspects of the book is the fierceness with which Starr's parents and the extended family protect her and her siblings. One of her greatest advocates is her Uncle Carlos, who is a police detective.

My writing about this book and its plot cannot possibly serve it justice. I have to lead two discussions of the book over the next several weeks, and I am not sure how to proceed with the discussion. I asked an African American friend to help me with one of the discussions, and I had to laugh when Starr talks about being the "official representative of the black race." I guess that is what I am asking my friend to be.

The Hate U Give is the Kalamazoo community read for 2019, and Angie Thomas will be speaking in Kalamazoo on April 18. I noticed that in the lead up to the event, several high school classes are reading the book. I am sure that the discussion that night will be incredible and revealing. I would not have read the book if it had not been chosen for this event, but it is a book that will stay with me forever. One reviewer said that it has entered the lexicon of great young adult books. A movie of the same name came out in 2018, which I intend to see before the Reading Together events.

Here are some comments from the reviewer in The Guardian: "The Hate U Give is an outstanding debut novel and says more about the contemporary black experience in America than any book I have read for years, whether fiction or non-fiction. It’s a stark reminder that, instead of seeking enemies at its international airports, America should open its eyes and look within if it’s really serious about keeping all its citizens safe."