The Hate U Give

Starr (ha!) rating: 5/5

"Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug."

Summary:

Starr's life is forever changed when she watches a cop murder her childhood best friend. 

Starr lives in what she classifies as the hood, but attends a predominantly-white suburban private school. She keeps the two aspects of her life very separate. She acts as white as she can at her school, not wanting anyone to have a reason to call her "ghetto" or "hood" or "sassy" or "angry," labels that are far too often thrown onto black people. After witnessing Khalil's death, she at first wants to hide. When news about his death and the case against the officer spreads, Starr doesn't want any of her white friends to know that she was associated with him, especially now that the news is trying to paint Khalil as a drug-dealing gang-banger. But with the support of her amazing family, she is able to find her voice, speak out against injustice, figure out who her true friends are, and learn how to be herself. 

Review:

The best kinds of books are the ones that stick with you. The ones that have you thinking back wondering, "how are those characters doing?" even though they're fictional. The Hate U Give will forever be one of those books to me. It's rare for a novel to hit me as deep as this one did. I fell so totally head-over-heels in love with Starr and the entire Carter family. This book is so unbelievably well-written, you can practically feel the emotions radiating off of the pages - the anger, the hurt, the trauma, the love, the resilience. 

Starr and Khalil's story is a far too common one. Khalil was a child who was murdered. The news tried to make excuses by pointing out that he sold drugs, by falsely accusing him of gang activity, but none of that matters. He posed absolutely no threat to the cop who shot him. He was a child, and he died, and Starr had to watch him die. Starr would have to go about the rest of her life fearing that the same would happen to her, or her brother, or her father. Starr had to summon all of her strength to testify against the cop in court, and she had to watch him walk free anyway. This story is painful to read, but it needs to be read.