Tuesday, September 20, 2022

The Hate You Give Review

     



Starr Carter - Movie Adaptation
    There are times that after reading a book, its characters and their struggles will stay with you for a long time. The Hate You Give is one of those books for me since it opened my eyes to a reality that was plainly in front of me, but clearly, I was too distracted to notice it. As I started reading this book I couldn't help but remember how back in 1992 I spent numerous hours in front of a television watching the events that the world came to know as the Los Angeles Race Riots. Since then, I have always claimed to be familiar with the trigger of the terrible events that took over Los Angeles. My explanation was always very simple. A group of policemen beats up Rodney King, and they were acquitted, and the public took over the streets in protest of the injustice that had taken place. Well, it took me thirty years and finding my way to this book to understand how naïve and incorrect I was back then, and in my assessment of every similar protest that has taken place since then. 

Cop checking Khalil scene
    The Hate U Give tells the story of a sixteen-year-old, Starr Carter, who one day after leaving a party, witnesses the killing of her friend Khalil at the hands of a cop. Unfortunately, this is a story we have heard way too many times in the news. Two Afro-American kids, get pulled over by a cop, and things escalate without reason, and the end result is that the cop pulls the gun and kills the kid. What makes this story different and extremely compelling is that the author grabs the reader by the hand, and invites us into the neighborhood where Starr and Khalil grew up. Instead of shielding the reader from the crude and brutal world that our protagonist has to deal with every day, Angie Thomas takes the path of showing us that although these kids have grown up in that environment, they were not tainted by it and that they certainly didn't deserve the faith they encounter at the hands of that cop on that night. 

    We don't only experience Starr and Khalil's struggles, but we also get to see their parent's dedication and persistence to try to provide a better life for them. In some cases, they succeeded, like Maverick and Lisa (Starr's parents), but in others, they succumbed to the same evils that condemned the neighborhood, like Khalil's mother. The author also shows us how even after all the frustration our characters feel with the government agencies that have let them down multiple times, they still care for their neighborhood and are willing to fight for it and defend it. We see this at multiple levels during the story like when Mr. Lewis condemns King's actions on the live news, or when it is discovered that Khalil refused to join King's gang. 

    In 2013 a group of women formed the Black Lives Matter Movement after the acquittal of George Zimmerman for Trayvon. The movement gained momentum in 2014 after the death of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. With additional cases of police abuse, public unrest was growing. The Hate U Give was published on February 28, 2017. Followers of the movement as well as the public that was unrest with the continuous incidents of police abuse found that the book and its characters gave a voice to their frustrations. 

    The one thing I really enjoyed about this book that I would like to be able to mimic in my work is how Thomas was able to make the neighborhood into a character in the story. The neighborhood ends up playing a very important part in the story since for the reader to understand the struggle the main characters are going through, they need to understand how is the neighborhood they grew up in. How different is that neighborhood from the one that her uncle Carlos lives in, and most importantly, how different is that neighborhood from the one our readers live in? That contrast with the reader's neighborhood is critical because it does challenge them to trade places with the characters and try to feel their experiences. 

    The only thing I didn't feel comfortable about the work was how the whole situation between Khalil and the cop transpired. I'm not blaming Khalil, but I can't help going back to Maverick's own teachings to his kids on how to deal with cops when they pull you over. Khalil challenged the cop from the start, and although that doesn't justify him getting killed, I wonder if it could have helped the situation. On top of it all, why didn't Starr mention Khalil's attitude in any of her testimonies? Not a justification for Khali getting killed, but it did feel as if Starr was trying to hide it. 

    As per the marketability of the book, as a YA selection, it touches on very modern topics with a lot of interest to the younger generations. Also, the relationships and teen struggles are very well represented within the novel in a way that teenagers and even older generations can relate to.             



2 comments:

  1. On one hand, there is a point to be made that the cop saw a hairbrush and thought it was a gun, but that was never mentioned until way later, so in my head, it felt like that was a detail the cop thought of later as his excuse. However, I think this book makes a pretty valid argument of if Khalil was shot because the cop thought he had a gun when it was only a hairbrush, where does it end? A lot of things at night look like other things.
    I feel like I remember Starr mentioning Khalil's attitude, maybe the same interview where she mentioned what Khalil said when he came back to check on her.

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  2. I also think the community itself was quite the big character in the story. I think that's more to do with the fact that the individuals don't get as much depth to them because of available page space. But it definitely adds up into the community seeming to be one whole, complete thing. Which I feel is exactly a point the book was trying to make.

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