The Hate U Give Review

Hardcover, 453 Pages
YA/ Contemporary
By: Angie Thomas

“What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?”

🌟 I am going to use this book’s advice to use my strongest weapon: My voice!
Almost 90% of the reviews of this book will tell you that everyone should read this one, and I will add my voice to them and tell you if you haven’t already read it then please do. If not for the important messages it has then for its great writing and characters.

🌟 I have been procrastinating reading this book because of the hype, I mean it blew the bookish world from the moment it was released and it is impressive that this is a debut because it didn’t feel like one.

🌟 I loved the writing of Angie because she can make you feel things, it was funny, amusing yet very powerful! The flow was great and the story wasn’t confusing or anything so that made it even better.

🌟 The characters are great too, specially Starr’s family, I lover her Mom and Seven and Dad, I love the neighbors and Maya, I loved most of the characters and something that I was wondering about was the strange name they had but it was explained later and every time I found myself wondering about something, the answer would eventually show up at a later point in the book, it is if Angie has thought about everything!

🌟 Now the thing that bothered me was…. I don’t know what to call it, I have read many reviews after finishing this and saw that there were others who shared my opinion. I don’t think I can call it racism, I may call it double standard or contradiction. We have Starr as the MC and she is obviously sensitive when it comes to anything racist which is great. Now there is a time when her father tells her that he wanted to show her how a great black father should be and she corrects him and tells him how a great father he is, -without black- and that was something I strongly agree with. Now I am always against generalizations because there are always exceptions specially when it comes to people. I don’t know why Starr assumed that every white person is Rich and has no problems. I don’t understand this part:

“You’re white, okay?” I yell. “You’re white!”

Given that her boyfriend was white and he treated her so good and that was she told him when they fought!

Also, Starr & Hailey fight over Hailey’s racist jokes and Starr says it is NEVER acceptable to say this kind of jokes. Well, that was until she and her friends at page 400 says to Chris:

“I swear, I don’t understand white people.
Breadcrumbs on macaroni, kissing dogs on the mouth—”
“Treating their dogs like they’re their kids,” I add.
“Yeah!” says DeVante. “Purposely doing shit that could kill them, like bungee jumping.”
“Calling Target ‘Tar-jay,’ like that makes it fancier,” says Seven.
“F*ck,” Chris mutters. “That’s what my mom calls it.”
Seven and I bust out laughing.
“Saying dumb shit to their parents,” DeVante continues. “Splitting up in situations when they clearly need to stick together.”

So, is it only people who says dumb shit to their parents? I don’t understand really what was the point of this scene. Because judging from Starr’s psychology and  if the scene was reversed then she would have gone flipping mad over it!! If someone can explain to me those things then this was almost a perfect book. But for the time being, I give it 4 out of 5 stars!

“Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.”

Prescription: For all readers!!