What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?
When 16-year-old Starr Carter is the only witness to her best friend’s death at the hands of a police officer, it’s up to her to stay silent or decide against it.
The Hate U Give touches on so many strong points unflateringly. This is not just a book about someone’s decision against silence, but also on dual identities, systemic racism, and, of course, poptarts and Jordans.
Not to mention, the experience of being black in America.
The truth is that I don’t know what it’s like to be black in America, and neither do 85.6% of Americans as of 2022. The premise of this book provides a call that so many people desperately need. This book is a punch-to-the-gut that’s very relevant today.
That is all to say, this book made me think.
Unlike most of the other Newberry award winners on African American life, Starr has a stable family with supportive parents who love each other, and is getting an expensive education. But she lives in an area where that isn’t the norm, so she has an interesting dual identity. What really makes the book are the contrasts. She cares about her neighbors getting shot and not having jobs and selling drugs and joining gangs, but she also cares about shoes and Harry Potter and basketball games and pop tarts.
As Starr navigates her role as the only witness to the fatal shooting, the book presents the contrast in response between her dual identity as well as the duality between her Hood neighborhood and the removed viewpoints of the privileged kids she goes to school with. The Hate U Give is effective in portraying how people excuse, justify, and react toward police brutality, and how it connects to the struggles that African Americans face.
Had I read this book when it first came out in 2017, it probably would’ve been more profound. First because of the then-ongoing Black Lives Matter campaign, and secondly because I’m older and this novel loosely reads like YA fiction. Still, there’s no denying that this is a book of raw honesty and depth–one that is extremely effective in conveying its message on social injustice.
~5 stars
