Young Adult fiction is not generally my go to genre but I am trying to build my student library at work and my friend and fellow teacher told me that she builds her library by buying YA books, which is excellent advice.
There has been a lot of buzz surrounding Angie Thomas’ debut novel, The Hate U Give, and it deserves all of it. It is smart, biting, original, real, and well written without being felt talked down to.
The novel follows sixteen year old Starr Carter, a girl who witnesses her unarmed childhood best friend shot by police at a traffic stop and becomes entrenched in the Black Lives Matter movement as a result. The book does an excellent job of discussing the racial injustice by focusing of Khalil’s life with this grandmother and his drug addicted mother. He was a good guy. Khalil’s story is the story of so many other black men killed by police and the subsequent absence of punishment. It is told well and without being contrived.
What I really found intriguing is Starr’s duality of life that she must live each day. She is struggling with her identity in a way that minorities deal with constantly; trying to live two lives in one body.
She lives in the self described “ghetto” but her parents have the means and wherewithal to send her to the private, rich, white school outside of town. There she must temper her “blackness” in order to fit in and not draw too much attention to herself. And at home she is constantly being criticized by her neighborhood peers for not coming around any more and for having white friends, basically, being bougie.
This idea of living “authentically” in the black community is something that I see my high school students struggle with often. Attending a school and or living in a predominately white neighborhood often has my students pick which person they want to be or what group they want to be a part of.
A recent graduate told me that she isn’t trying to be anybody other than herself but by being herself it appears to others that she is making a choice. Hangs out with white friends? She is trying to be white. Get her hair braided? Acting black.
This internally struggle that is defined by other people must be so trying and painful. And The Hate U Give does a really excellent job of exploring this reality of life as a middle class African American. Or at least as much as this white lady thinks that it does.
The Hate U Give: 4 out of 5 stars.
Up next: Turtles All The Way Down -John Green
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