Author: Angie Thomas
Summary: The Hate U Give is Angie Thomas’s first novel about a teenage girl who grapples with racism, police brutality, and activism after witnessing her black friend murdered by the police. The book became an immediate young adult bestseller and was adapted into a movie shortly after its release.
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighbourhood 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 afterwards, 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.
Want more of Garden Heights? Catch Maverick and Seven’s story in Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas’s powerful prequel to The Hate U Give.
“Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It means you go on even though you’re scared.”
