The Hate you give by Angie Thomas

The hate you give by Angie Thomas

Genre: YA fiction

Rating: 2 out of 5

National Book Award Nominee for Young People’s Literature (2017), Odyssey Award (2018), William C. Morris YA Debut Award (2018), Los Angeles Times Book Prize Nominee for Young Adult Literature (2017), Edgar Award Nominee for Best Young Adult (2018)Michael L. Printz Award Nominee (2018), Rhode Island Teen Book Award Nominee (2019), Coretta Scott King Award Nominee for Author Honor (2018), Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for Preis der Jugendjury (2018), Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award (2018), Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Fiction (2017), Lincoln Award Nominee (2019), Kirkus Prize Nominee for Young Readers’ Literature (2017), Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction & for Debut Goodreads Author (2017) and for Best of the Best (2018), Carnegie Medal Nominee (2018), NAACP Image Award Nominee for Youth/Teens (2018)

Thoughts:

Disclaimer: I’m neither white nor black, nor do I live in the US. So whatever I’ve seen or read about this subject is from a distance. Please do keep that in mind.

When I started the book, I was really liking it. I thought, finally I just might get my first five star book of this year. But then it started to annoy me. To be precise, Starr started to annoy me. She is one of the most unlikable characters I’ve ever read in a book.

For e.g She went all Apeshit on her friend who said she feels bad for the white cop after seeing his dad’s interview on TV. If she was so angry about her friend’s opinion, she should have gone on TV and set the record straight or she should have told her friend what really happened. But she didn’t even tell them that she knew Khalil. She was an epitome of double standards.

When Starr’s dad asked her why her boyfriend was white and not black, not even for a second did she feel like it was racist. Or when she screams at her boyfriend that he is ‘White! white! white!”. I kind of get it, I get why she would feel that way, but if you fight racism with racism, it’s not going to lead anywhere.

The book itself was very slow and didn’t have anything new I hadn’t read or seen on TV/ Documentaries before.

BUT…Having said that, I’m not the target reader for this book. For younger readers, it might be good to see the other point of view and empathise. It’s good to read positive stories about the “ghetto” along with what is usually shown.

It’s not a bad book. It just wasn’t for me. I was going to give this 3 stars, but the more I think about it, the more angry I get.