The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas | A powerful and resonant message {Yomna's Review}

 My rating: 4/5

No spoilers!

I would like to first start by explaining my choice to rate this book 4 stars because I know many people who read this book gave it 5 stars. My main problem (and it was pretty significant) was the pacing. It took me 9 days to finish this book, NINE! For a book that is not significantly long, that is a lot of time for me. I felt that all the main events of the book happened in either the first quarter and last quarter. The middle half took me forever to get through, there was so much doubt and I don't know why I just couldn't get invested in the story. I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just didn't enjoy the book as much as I thought I would.

Now that we're done with the negatives, let's talk about that amazing message. I live for DIVERSITY!! Angie Thomas introduces us to Starr's two different universes, her fancy school and her run-down neighborhood. It's honestly amazing the amount of world-building you get within a contemporary! It was so interesting! Not to mention the characters! I think my favorite character was Starr's mother, just because she was so spunky and cool. More than that, I loved Starr's point of view on how different the behavior and the atmospheres of the two places where she existed were. In Starr's fancy school we see her with all of her friends and it seems all well and good but she feels alienated and separated from them on a level because of her race. However, with her family and in her neighborhood, despite all the violence, she feels understood, loved, safe. It's so sad to see her insecurities in her school when interacting with her friends. Despite coming from a different culture and country than many of my peers at school, my school is international so fortunately, I have not struggled on the level that Starr did. 

I honestly think everyone should read this book. Police brutality is a problem in so many countries of the world, and this is something that should 100% be addressed. It broke my heart what happened to Khalil and the claims of the officer's family after the event. It was so frustrating and I really could feel Starr's anger and fury at the racial mistreatment. It feels so stupid to me that many murders like this happened and went unpunished. Officers get away with murdering children merely because they looked threatening! That is insane and heart-breaking...

Overall, I think this book is a great read for an insight into police brutality and racial discrimination from a teenager's point of view. I think this book was and is a great way for teenagers to educate themselves about racism. It definitely opened my eyes up to a lot of things about the #BlackLivesMatter movement that I didn't know before!

Thanks,
Yomna