The Hate U Give/Angie Thomas - 4 stars

[JoLene]

This is the story of Starr, a young black girl who lives in a ghetto, but goes to a private primarily white school. She was being driven home from a party with a childhood friend, Khalil, when the two were pulled over for a broken tail-light. Things go very wrong and her friend is killed by the officer and she is the only witness.

First and foremost, I think that this is a very important story and it should be required reading for high school students. Thomas covers a lot of ground about the challenges of growing up in the black communities where gangs, drugs and guns are prevalent. Opportunities for making money legally are few and far between which lead to the choices such as selling drugs for money or eating. The killing of an unarmed black teenager is a "ripped from the headlines" story and Thomas does a great job of showing the perspective of the black community to the incident and specifically the many emotions that Starr goes through as she deals with the incident and the aftermath.

All that being said, the intended audience is young adults, and I am quite a few years beyond that target. While the events of the story were horrific, there were some area where I felt like there was some of the punches were pulled. For example, Khalil was a rumored drug-dealer, (view spoiler) but whether that is true or not should not distract from whether or not killing and unarmed teenager should be acceptable. Also, while I loved Starr's family and Aunt and Uncle, I'm not sure that very many kids actually have that type of support structure.

In summary, this is a very read-able, very timely story which exposes a very different side of life that most do not see.