Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Source: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062677082/the-hate-u-give/
This is an excellent book. This is what good fiction does - help you understand a world, a time, a life vastly different from yours by providing you a window to peer into the lives of others.
Excellent ensemble of well-developed characters, an immersive narrative style, well-paced: all these elements only add to an excellent story, personalizing an arc of events we've seen splayed over news cycles all too often, and adding more power to it. And that was important for me, getting a glimpse of the personal stories here, to go along with the academic arguments against police brutality, systemic oppression, protest, resistance. The editorial decision (I presume) to not delve deep into these pedantic arguments serve this book well. It's the reinforcement of the idea of community and how they deal with everyday assaults that drives this book home for me.
