The Hate U Give (2017)
The Hate U Give is a 2017 black lives matter book written by Angie Thomas.
Starr Carter keeps two selves in balance. One belongs to Garden Heights, the poor Black neighborhood where she grew up. The other belongs to Williamson, the mostly white prep school where she guards her every word. The line between them breaks when she becomes the only witness to a police officer shooting her unarmed childhood friend Khalil. Angie Thomas, in her debut, writes Starr's grief and slow-building courage from the inside, tracking how a family holds together and how a city's anger rises. The novel takes its title and its argument from Tupac's idea of Thug Life.
Quick answers
What is The Hate U Give about?
Starr Carter keeps two selves in balance. One belongs to Garden Heights, the poor Black neighborhood where she grew up. The other belongs to Williamson, the mostly white prep school where she guards her every word. The line between them breaks when she becomes the only witness to a police officer shooting her unarmed childhood friend Khalil. Angie Thomas, in her debut, writes Starr's grief and slow-building courage from the inside, tracking how a family holds together and how a city's anger rises. The novel takes its title and its argument from Tupac's idea of Thug Life.
When was The Hate U Give published?
The Hate U Give was published in 2017.
Who made The Hate U Give?
The Hate U Give was written by Angie Thomas.
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A few thoughts on The Hate U Give
The 2018 film adaptation carries Starr's voice to the screen with little softening. Fruitvale Station retells the real Oscar Grant killing that first moved Angie Thomas to write this story, following one man through his last day. Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly runs on the same current of rage, grief, and pride that powers the book.
Stories about growing up under a system stacked against you
The Hate U Give follows Starr Carter across two worlds that never let her fully belong to either, and it names Tupac's Thug Life as its own argument. To Pimp a Butterfly makes the same case in an album, Fruitvale Station and The Outsiders show how a life gets erased by a system stacked against it, and All Boys Aren't Blue confronts that same divide from the inside.