Book notes: The Hate U Give

By Angie Thomas.

Recommended to me by my son and wife. A great choice for family book club.

This book paints a highly entertaining fictional story around current pressing issues in the Black community: income/opportunity inequality, health inequality, police brutality, and living while Black in daily life in the USA. It also shows the tight family and community bonds; there is a lot more humanity in poor neighborhoods than is implied by the media. “The Hate U Give” initials spell “thug”, and is taken from a Tupac lyric. The full lyric is “The hate you give little infants (eff) everybody”.

Starr Carter is a high school age Black woman, living in the poor, inner-city neighborhood of “Garden Heights”. She attends a mostly-white high school out in the suburbs. She’s learned to act differently in her white and black worlds, which is exhausting. Early in the book she witnesses a police officer shooting and killing her friend Khalil.

One of my favorite things about the book: Starr’s interactions with her family and friends. The dialog is funny, caring, and poignant.

There is a fantastic scene with Starr, her brother Seven, their friend DeVante, and Starr’s white boyfriend Chris. They are impressed that Chris knows some NWA lyrics and deem him not “white”, but “light-skinned”, and test his “Blackness” with several questions. Does he eat green bean casserole? Why do white people split up when there is danger? (i.e. white people get lost while hiking, they split up and get eaten by bears.) Chris asks a (risky) question in return, “Why are Black names so uncommon”? DeVante says his name isn’t uncommon, he knows 3 DeVantes on his block!

My goal is to read 12 books a year and I’m grateful this book was one of them. Highly recommended!