The Hate U Give

The Hate U Give Little Infants F*cks Everybody. T-H-U-G L-I-F-E.

I really enjoyed reading this. My emotions were all over the place by laughing at Chris trying to make jokes, getting angry at Hailey for being the way she is and almost tearing up at all the problems Starr had to experience. The book touches on the movement Black Lives Matter and gives realistic insight on how Blacks are treated by law enforcement. It also touches on interracial relationships, racism, and the difference between Black and White neighborhoods.
What’s great about this is that nothing was exaggerated, not even the way Starr spoke in the ‘hood’. The fact that I can relate to the main in character is fantastic! In addition, the way that Angie Thomas was able to display all of those different topics/issues into one book is mind-blowing.

I like seeing the world from different perspectives, and this book was very impactful for me. I read this after the Michael Brown shooting and before the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor shootings. Talk about timely. I recommend this book to anyone struggling to understand why people are so upset about these shootings. Step into someone else’s shoes, empathize with their view, and maybe get a better understanding. I’m a middle aged, middle class white dude from the rural Midwest, and this book made me empathize with a young black girl from the inner city. Great book.

I won’t give too much of this book away but I felt the need to write this. I this year the events that happened in the The Hate U Give nearly mirror the George Floyd events. This book is tragic and realistic. I suggest you read it.

Starr Carter is an African American teenage girl from Garden Heights. Her father is a former gang member who did time, but got out of the bad life for his family, and her mother is a hard worker who wants her family to be safe. Starr is living in two separate worlds. There is the one in Garden Heights where there is a lot of poverty, minorities, gangs, drugs, and violence, and the other is the richer suburban area where she attends school and is one of only a handful of African Americans. One night Starr is at a party with some of her Garden Heights friends and there are gunshots. She leaves with a childhood best friend and they end up getting pulled over. Starr experiences one of the most traumatic events ever. Her friend is shot right in front of her very eyes by the officer that pulled them over. But why? He wasn’t doing anything wrong. Even worse, when Starr went to her friend, the gun was then turned on her. Why did this happen? Can Starr help get her friend Khalil the justice he deserves? Will she ever be able to truly fit into both worlds?
I read this via the audio version. I absolutely loved it! This book got me right in the feels. It was probably one of the best books I’ve read this year hands down. This book is a huge eye opener. I honestly feel like it should be on a reading list for schools. I highly recommend this book, and the audio version is definitely amazing. I rate this book

read its smaking

What a perspective-altering book this is! Every adult in America should read this.
“The Hate U Give” is a gripping, heart-wrenching story full of characters you care about and root for (and get angry on their behalf). But more than that, it is a real eye-opener–an opportunity to see the world and the experience of a police shooting (and the aftermath) from the perspective of a Black teenager who had to live through the experience of her childhood friend Khalil being shot to death right in front of her eyes.

Starr is the perfect narrator for this story, because she feels caught between two worlds–the neighborhood where she lives, which she calls “ghetto,” and the mostly-white school her parents send her to in order to give her her best shot in life. By watching her navigate the uneasy line between these worlds, she helps us bridge the gap, too. We can better understand a world we (white America) are more inclined to pass judgment on than to try to understand. Reading this book, I really “got” it. The people we lump together as “bad guys” have a lot more going on than we realize, and sometimes they do bad things because they’ve gotten boxed into a place where they can’t figure out another way to survive. And Angie Thomas teaches us, if we’re willing to keep an open mind, how it is that protests turn violent when the establishment fails, as it always seems to do, to offer justice.

The following passage stopped me in my tracks. In it, Starr is feeling bruised and betrayed after discovering that Khalil might have been dealing drugs.

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I remember what Khalil said–he got tired of choosing between lights and food. “They need money,” I say. “And they don’t have a lot of other ways to get it.”

“Right. Lack of opportunities,” Daddy says. “Corporate America don’t bring jobs to our communities, and they damn sure ain’t quick to hire us. Then, shit, even if you do have a high school diploma, so many of the schools in our neighborhoods don’t prepare us well enough. That’s why when your momma talked about sending you and your brothers to Williamson, I agreed. Our schools don’t get the resources to equip you like Williamson does. It’s easier to find some crack than it is to find a good school around here.

“Now, think ’bout this,” he says. “How did the drugs even get in our neighborhood? This is a multibillion-dollar industry we talking ’bout, baby. That shit is flown into our communities, but I don’t know anybody with a private jet. Do you?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Drugs come from somewhere, and they’re destroying our community,” he says. “You got folks like Brenda, who thinks they need them to survive, and then you got the Khalils, who think they need to sell them to survive. The Brendas can’t get jobs unless they’re clean, and they can’t pay for rehab unless they got jobs. When the Khalils get arrested for selling drugs, they either spend most of their life in prison, another billion-dollar industry, or they have a hard time getting a real job and probably start selling drugs again. That’s the hate they’re giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That’s Thug Life.”

This book really helped open my eyes in a lot of ways, plus it’s an amazing story I couldn’t put down! Highly recommend. I also think more people should read On the Come Up, another novel by the same author.

omg this is so good you shouldbe in a book writing competionThe Hate U Give

i love this book

I believe every high school English class should be assigning this book to read!