The trade paperback edition of the highly buzzed about YA debut from Mark Oshiro, Anger Is a Gift follows a boy from Oakland as he falls in love amidst the chaos of modern America.*31st Annual Lammy Finalist for LGBTQ Children’s/Young Adult category**2019 ALA Schneider Family Book Award Teen Winner**Buzzfeed’s 24 Best YA Books of 2018**Vulture’s 38 Best LGBTQ YA Novels**Book Riot’s Best Books … Winner*
*Buzzfeed’s 24 Best YA Books of 2018*
*Vulture’s 38 Best LGBTQ YA Novels*
*Book Riot’s Best Books 2018*
*Hyable’s Most Anticipated Queer YA Books of 2018*
*The Mary Sue’s 18 Books You Should Read in 2018*
Moss Jeffries is many things–considerate student, devoted son, loyal friend and affectionate boyfriend, enthusiastic nerd.
But sometimes Moss still wishes he could be someone else–someone without panic attacks, someone whose father was still alive, someone who hadn’t become a rallying point for a community because of one horrible night.
And most of all, he wishes he didn’t feel so stuck.
Moss can’t even escape at school–he and his friends are subject to the lack of funds and crumbling infrastructure at West Oakland High, as well as constant intimidation by the resource officer stationed in their halls. That was even before the new regulations–it seems sometimes that the students are treated more like criminals.
Something will have to change–but who will listen to a group of teens?
When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes again, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.
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Anger is a Gift is an explosion of fury and revolution. Mark Oshiro’s beautiful and brutal debut proves that not only can anyone be a hero, but great change comes when the heroes work together.
This book was one of the best that I have ever read. It reminds us that eve though the world has a lot of good, we all still have issues, and that evil can strike at unexpected times. It reminds us that racism is not gone, and we all still have to work hard to be rid of it
Raw, unflinching, and full of heart. Anger is a Gift is a masterpiece.
Obviously this is an incredibly important story in today’s world, tackling heavy issues of police brutality and interference in public schools. Anyone who’s read Angie Thomas, Nic Stone, Adam Silvera, or Jason Reynolds should pick this up…as well as just about anyone who wants to read a powerful, inspiring, and extremely relevant book,
Content warnings for police brutality, anxiety & panic attacks, death, and racist language and violence.
Plot…
The story follows Moss Jeffries as he tries to push back against the increased levels of police involvement in his high school, even as he struggles with anxiety from his father’s death by a police officer, and navigates his first real relationship.
I’m always a sucker for stories about teenagers rising up against corrupt authority and discovering how to be activists, no matter how many times it’s done in YA. I love that these kids compared themselves to Dumbledore’s Army, because that was the original story of this sort that made me fall in love with the trope. So obviously that part of the plot had me cheering.
Some parts of the story felt straight-up dystopian, the kind of things that don’t happen in real life. But, of course, they do happen, which was why this story felt so important and terrifying. The plot went places that I did not expect and pushed to lengths that shocked me. During certain parts, I was on the edge of my seat. Don’t expect to be bored during the climactic scenes of this book.
Characters…
Despite having a strong, driving plot, this ended up being quite a character focused story, particularly centering on the main character, Moss Jeffries. He was a truly wonderful main character and I felt like I understood this world so much better seeing it through his eyes. His anxiety sometimes felt so visceral, not just around police officers, but also surrounding intimacy and certain relationships in his life. I felt like I was fighting alongside him through the entire book.
Moss’ mom, Wanda, is also a major character. I loved her so much, and the relationship between the two of them was beautiful.
Other important characters include Esperanza, Moss’ best friend, who has an interesting character arc surrounding her relative privilege compared to the other characters. And of course Javier, Moss’ boyfriend. In addition, there’s a huge cast of supporting characters, so much that it was sometimes hard to keep track of all of them. But they were amazingly diverse and showed the wide array of people in Moss’ community.
Writing…
For me, the writing is where the book struggled. This is obviously a personal preference, but at times the writing felt unpolished and somewhat stilted, which unfortunately took me out of the story. I’d find myself mentally editing a line to make it less awkward, which isn’t exactly what I want to be doing when reading a book. Besides the weak moments, though, there were still spots that shone.
Overall feelings…
Anger Is a Gift is an incredibly moving story about the power of anger and how it can fuel action and activism instead of causing helplessness. I hear about this kind of police brutality against people of color in less privileged neighborhoods, but sometimes the true horror of these things don’t really become clear until it’s in a story. This book so clearly demonstrated the far-reaching evil of the racism and violence that actually does exist in America today, and it inspired me to turn my anger into productive activism.
Anger is a Gift is a riveting story about an issue that we know all too well. Police brutality and violence. Mark Oshiro’s novel does a great job telling this story from a perspective that I found to be emotionally driving and necessary.
Moss is a gay half Puerto Rican half black teenager who is still struggling with the death of his father at the hands of police. It causes him to have panic attacks and have bouts of anger. This is why I found the title so important and why Moss’s anger is the driving point of this book. Black people are always being portrayed as aggressive people. But what most don’t understand is that anger builds from years of oppression and discrimination. Frankly, we’ve had enough. So whenever Moss got really angry and wanted to lash out and speak his mind, his actions are important. On one hand you want him to speak his mind, but on the other you don’t want to feed into the stereotype that we respond with violence and anger. I really loved Moss’s battle that has built up since his fathers death.
Another important thing about this book is that it does a great job talking about the things Moss and his mother had to deal with after his father’s death. People said terrible things about his father, he was bullied, media portrayed his father in a terrible light to fit their narrative, and he became even more afraid of the police. We also learn about things his mother went through as well which were very hard.
Mark Oshiro does a great job with this very diverse cast of characters. I really loved all of them. They were great friends and stuck with each other. It helped to show how much the community stuck up for each other. Esperanza was also an important character since she was adopted by a white family and couldn’t see things from Moss’s perspective. Although she was a minority, she was privileged and didn’t have to endure the things Moss and friends had to deal with.
Anger is a Gift touches on a lot of things: violence, police brutality, assault, corruption, racism, and murder. This story is set in Oakland, which I think was fitting and held a lot of weight for the type of story being told. This is a powerful story that shook me to my very core. I had to put this book down because I cried almost the entire time reading this book. As a woman of color, I understood Moss’s anger and pain. I connected to him in a personal level. I felt his anger and pain through the entire book. It was amazing to see how he went from being kid scared to stand up for something he felt so strongly about to being empowered enough to fight his fears and stand up for the boy he loved. He fought for all his friends who were victims, his father’s injustice, and Javier. It was a great moment for me. Because damn if I didn’t love Moss and Javier together.
This is a powerful story. Yes, there is a lot of violence, but its real. Its raw and realistic. Oakland is no joke and the schools are rough. That doesn’t mean the police should abuse their authority and that’s a big thing in this book. They did terrible things and no one was at fault or held responsible except for the people who got hurt and killed. I hope stories like this one continue to get told until something is changed. I highly recommend this book. It was an amazing, yet emotional read.
“Anger is a gift. Remember that…You gotta grasp on to it, hold it tight and use it as ammunition. You use that anger to get things done instead of just stewing in it.”
This is an incredibly powerful novel about resilience in the face of adversity and loss. It is about community. It is about taking a stand against the system of oppression, even if it seems hopeless. This is an incredibly difficult read, but it is such an important read. The Bay Area, and Oakland especially, has a long history of activism and holding the police accountable yet there is a long documented history of police brutality there. This novel shines a light on what it is like to be a person of color in Oakland. Compton. Chicago. And countless other cities around the United States.
Anger is a Gift follows sixteen year old Moss and his diverse group of friends at the start of their junior year at West Oakland High School – a dilapidated school that the system may as well have forgotten about. Peeling paint, missing ceiling tiles, not enough books to go around; funding having been restricted due to low test scores, a choice that has doomed the students to an endless cycle. Even the College Fair proves to reinforce the self-fulfilling prophesy these disenfranchised kids cannot achieve success and better their positionality. Juxtaposed against any of the other area high schools, the kids at West Oakland High have the deck stacked against them.
“You know, sometimes it does feel like we’re in one of those trendy dystopian novels. Except a lot less white.”
This is a contemporary dystopian, except that this is currently happening across the country. It begins with random locker searches, but things quickly escalate. The kids decide to organize, to execute their first amendment rights. Reading the events unfold felt like reading the news; crippling to the injustices in the world and feeling almost powerless to stop it. And as we have become all too aware of, the media’s role in shaping the narrative of public discourse helps to continue the system of disenfranchisement.
I appreciated Esperanza’s character a lot. She is Hispanic but having been adopted by well-off, well educated white parents in the posher neighborhood of Piedmont, circumstances that all afforded her privilege that she was not aware of. The journey that she takes, in witnessing the differing realities that she and her best friend Moss inhabit due to the circumstances of their homes firsthand was incredibly powerful for me, and added a layer of complexity to the narrative. She learns how to be a better ally, and as a result so did I.
The novel was a bit slow to start, but I think that pacing was important as the reader gets to know the characters and the system of oppression that they live in. I came to care deeply for them, and that made the novel all the more powerful as the narrative progressed and things escalated. In addition to exploring issues of race, this novel also delves into gender and sexual identity with gay, nonbinary, queer, and trans characters.
cw: police brutality, violence, death, loss of a parent, discrimination and racial profiling, racism, religious intolerance
This is a love poem to those activists that stand up for what is right and a rallying call to action for those on the sidelines. It also provides context on how to be an ally in a masterful manner. I recognize my privilege and my positionality in this society, and I’m not going to pretend I understand or can relate to POC’s suffering to even the slightest degree. But I will stand by you, because I do understand that our justice system is UNjust and NEEDS to be transformed. I cannot recommend this book enough both to everyone. Just bring the tissues; I haven’t cried this much since The Fault in Our Stars.