The Hate U Give
by
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
GET A COPY
“Brave doesn’t mean you are not scared, it means you go on even though you’re scared “
This book steered me on the inside, it revealed so much truth to me, about black people and white people, about the negative and the positive in each of them. And while teaching me that, it also taught me that people cannot and should not be grouped, stereotyped, described, judged, differentiated by the colour of their skin. Because the colour of our skin does not determine who we are or should be but it is who we really are that identifies with our skin.
Starr, the protagonist of the story, is a young girl who had to watch two of her friends die, as a result of the prejudice that was placed on the people of her colour (Dark skinned/black).
Firstly, I love the plot of this story, one would have thought that it was the kind of story that will end up singing the praises of black people and condemning white people, but rather it was made clear in the book that White people can be good or bad, as the case of The policeman who killed her friend and also Chris, Starr’s white boyfriend. And also made clear that Black people can be good or bad, as the case of King, the King Lord and other black people in the story.
One thing that sensitize a story is the ability to adapt realness to the fictionality. And that is just what Angie Thomas did to The Hate U Give.
There were challenges, happy times, which are not rare to come by, but I also enjoyed the growth of the main character, how she grew from being a scared, traumatized teenager to a teenager who learned that brevity is not the act of not being afraid but the ability to act even when you are afraid. She lived in a world where gunshots, riots, curse words, burglaries and Gangbanging was the order of the day.
She also had to be another version of herself when she is not in that world to fit in with the outside world, but at the end she learned to raise her voice, stand for her right, appreciate the people who care for her and also let go of the past and also the people who didn’t matter along the way.
The Hate U Give combs through the realities of racism, black lives, prejudice, and also Family relationships. I had an expectation when I started reading the Book and my expectations were met. Am not disappointed at all.
It is totally worth buying, reading, and re-reading.
The Hate you give has my 4.9 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐?
Photo Credit : tenpennydreams.com, algodaodoceparaocerebro.blogspot.com, Goodreads.
