Jordyn Bacon Review #5

[Jordyn]

This week I read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I absolutely loved this book. It tackled relevant issues in today’s society such as racism and classism in an interesting and personal way. Being white and from a middle class family, I was naturally sheltered from many of the problems protagonist Starr was faced with in her life. By reading this story I was able to step into the shoes of a young girl of color who lived in a poor neighborhood filled with crime and violence. I did not realize all of the daily struggles which girls like Starr face until I read her side of the story. A huge focus of this story is police and racial profiling. As we see early in the novel, classifying people as good or bad, criminal or innocent by the color of their skin can be a fatal mistake. One thing which I really liked about this story is that there are so many different kinds of characters that you can really find yourself represented somewhere in the story. Not only does that make the issues seem more real to you, but it allows you to look at the situation in our society and what your role is in it and what you can do to make it better. I think that not only would this be a great book to read in your classroom, it is a book that all students should read and really, everyone in general should read. We are often ignorant to problems when they don’t affect you, but this story allows you to feel the problems and how they do affect people in such a powerful way.