Review: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

This is bigger than me and Khalil though. This is about Us, with a capital U; everybody who looks like us, feels like us, and is experiencing this pain with us despite not knowing me or Khalil. My silence isn’t helping Us.

I really have fallen in love with this book and am kicking myself as it has been sitting on my shelf for all this time waiting to be read.

The story focuses on 16-year-old Starr Carter, who finds her voice and activism after she witnesses the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend Khalil by a police officer. She is living between two worlds – the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised, and the posh high school she attends in the suburbs. Now what she says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed.

Speaking in an interview about her motivations for the novel, Angie Thomas explains she was first inspired to write it 11 years ago following the case of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, a young black man who was killed, unarmed on a train platform in Oakland in 2009. This was the first high-profile killing by police that was captured on video, and went viral, sparking protests that have since paved the way for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Tupac’s influence (another other of Thomas’ inspirations) features heavily in the novel, with its title taken from the words “THUG LIFE” which were famously tattooed across his chest. Doing a little background reading in preparation for this review, I learned via a video of Tupac himself speaking about its meaning that this is in fact an acronym: “The Hate U Give Little Infants F***s Everybody”. In other words, “What you feed us as seeds grows up and blows up in your face”.

In the novel, a pivotal conversation between Starr and her father explores what this really means. The discussion concludes that for Khalil, THUG LIFE sadly translated into a lack of opportunities which led to him selling drugs to support his family. For others a lack of resources in schools translated into difficulties in later years when seeking employment.

It’s this balance of dialogue that advances the plot, develops relationships between characters but also provides the social commentary underpinning the story itself that I really enjoyed. If you listen to Thomas talking about this debut you come to understand that her focus is really on the human aspect of what happens when a community sadly loses someone in this way. And this was another wonderful part of novel for me – as you really feel this strong sense of community emanating from the pages and get a sense of life in Garden Heights. You have the balance of gangs, regularly hearing gun shots, drugs with families who grew up in the same neighbourhood, support each other, accept each other warts and all, laugh together, grieve together.

Thomas describes Starr right in the first chapter whilst at the party as thinking “Suddenly I’m Eve in the Garden after she ate the fruit – it’s like I realise I’m naked” and reflecting on this having finished the novel I think it really highlights the journey Starr is about to be thrust upon at that point. She is well aware of territory wars and what life is like in Garden Heights, having been traumatised by the shooting of her other best friend at just ten years old, and hearing about her father’s experiences. She escapes some of these realities of her world at home as her parents have moved her to a private school in Riverton Hills called Williamson. It is witnessing this murder however that is her awakening, which prompts her to take a second look at everything she knows, and reassess her position, her friends, her relationships and helps her to find her voice.

This was another book I really could not put down – overall I found it to be sharp, engaging and deeply moving. I always appreciate well – written natural dialogue and there is a lot of it in this book, which helps lift the characters off the pages and truly bring them to life in a brilliant exploration of race, prejudice, injustice and much more. I agree with the Teen Vogue quote on the back cover – this powerful book really is “An essential read for everyone”.