The Hate You Give

Ms. Leaphart recommends you read the book before you see the movie. By Alyssa

By Becca Leaphart

Over the Holiday break I finally read a book I’ve been meaning to read for over a year: Angie Thomas’

The Hate U Give. The protagonist, Starr, is a sixteen-year-old black woman who is with her childhood

friend Khalil when he gets stopped by the police and killed despite being unarmed. The bulk of the book

focuses on Starr’s decisions about who to tell, what details to reveal, when and how to speak out for her

friend. Though she lives in Garden Heights, the impoverished neighborhood where she lost first a friend

to a drive-by shooting and then Khalil, Starr’s family sends her brother and her to a fancy, mostly white

prep school where she plays basketball, has close friendships and dates a white boy. Khalil’s death

forces her to destroy the strict line she’s drawn between her two worlds. As protesters and riot police

take to her streets, she has to decide where she stands and accept it when some friends choose to stand

with her and others turn their backs.

I don’t read a great deal of Young Adult literature, but I work with young adults and know what they’re

capable of, so the thing I appreciate most about this book was that it respects that adolescents are

capable of handling complexity. Many of them, like Starr, don’t have a choice as their lives thrust it upon

them. Though the language in this story is relatively straightforward, the issues it deals with –police

brutality, drug trade, gang violence, incarceration, domestic abuse, interracial relationships, sexuality,

consent, the list goes on—are messy and real. The plot is dramatic and compelling; I couldn’t help

reading it in just a couple of sittings. Yet the tangle of problems that unravels following Khalil’s death

brought up questions and dilemmas I won’t be able to quit thinking about.

Though no film ever stands up to the original book, I am eager to see this one on the screen as the story

is full of action and seemed unquestionably cinematic. But don’t wait—read the book first for the

reflection it provokes, and because it isn’t clear the movie will ever make it to Helena…