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A review by jenny_librarian
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
5.0
Trigger warning: PTSD, racism, cop violence against black people
5 ⭐️
When I first opened this book, it felt wrong. I felt like I was opening a door a shouldn't, peeking into a world I don't belong to. This doesn't usually happens to me with books, because I am white. I am (loosely) represented in most novels there are, because I am the "default" race for Western culture. Getting into The Hate U Give, I didn't know just how much I would feel othered. It made me uncomfortable, sure, but it mostly made me think. Is this how black people feel constantly? Because it's not a good feeling.
The story in itself was poignant, because we've seen it so many times on the news and social media. Black kid gets shot for no plausible reason, cop gets a free "out-of-jail" card for being a cop, the media demonize the black kid to back up the cop's story... and black people are left were they are, struggling to get by for lack of opportunities and institutionalized racism. This is the real problem (well, that and cops carrying firearms, but this is another debate altogether...) and this is what this story is ultimately about. Through Starr's POV, we see how deeply different Garden Heights and Williamson are because the people she grew up with don't have nearly the same opportunities white people do. It's not that they don't work hard, it's that nobody cares enough to actually lift that weight off their shoulders and give them those chances white privilege gives us all the time.
I won't go further into this, because it's not my place to comment on the life of black people. Read POC's reviews of the book to understand how this applies to them. All I will say is that the very end of the novel made me cry even harder than everything else. There were too many names on that list. This needs to stop...
5 ⭐️
When I first opened this book, it felt wrong. I felt like I was opening a door a shouldn't, peeking into a world I don't belong to. This doesn't usually happens to me with books, because I am white. I am (loosely) represented in most novels there are, because I am the "default" race for Western culture. Getting into The Hate U Give, I didn't know just how much I would feel othered. It made me uncomfortable, sure, but it mostly made me think. Is this how black people feel constantly? Because it's not a good feeling.
The story in itself was poignant, because we've seen it so many times on the news and social media. Black kid gets shot for no plausible reason, cop gets a free "out-of-jail" card for being a cop, the media demonize the black kid to back up the cop's story... and black people are left were they are, struggling to get by for lack of opportunities and institutionalized racism. This is the real problem (well, that and cops carrying firearms, but this is another debate altogether...) and this is what this story is ultimately about. Through Starr's POV, we see how deeply different Garden Heights and Williamson are because the people she grew up with don't have nearly the same opportunities white people do. It's not that they don't work hard, it's that nobody cares enough to actually lift that weight off their shoulders and give them those chances white privilege gives us all the time.
I won't go further into this, because it's not my place to comment on the life of black people. Read POC's reviews of the book to understand how this applies to them. All I will say is that the very end of the novel made me cry even harder than everything else. There were too many names on that list. This needs to stop...