Hi everyone. I'm Rincey and this is Rincey Reads.
Today I'm going to be doing a book
review on The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
This is a young adult book and it is a
new release. It just came out this month.
There has been a lot of hype surrounding
this book. I feel like I've been hearing
about this books since like the middle of
last year. Which is great but also made
me like super hesitant going into this book.
So in the story you are following
this girl named Starr. She is 16 years old
She lives in a lower class black neighborhood
and she goes to school at
this sort of upper, upper middle class
prep school that's mainly white.
So she lives her life sort of balancing
these two worlds. At the beginning of the
story you see her going to a party in
her neighborhood with one of her friends.
While she's there she bumps into an old
friend named Khalil. They grew up
together but they had sort of lost touch
recently and a fight sort of breaks out at
the party and they leave together and
he offers to drive her home.
So while they're driving home, they are
pulled over by a police officer and
stuff goes down and Khalil ends up
getting shot and Starr is the only
witness to the situation. So this is a
young adult story that talks about the
black lives matter movement. It follows
Starr in the aftermath of this, dealing
with Khalil's death, dealing with what she's
witnessed and what she sees happening in
the world around her and the choices
that she makes and even just like
looking at the lives and the situations of
the people living in her neighborhood and
the choices that they are forced to make
as well. So yeah, like I said this book
has been getting a lot of hype, it's
been getting a lot of praise as well.
So that made me super hesitant going into
it cause I thought it's just going to be
another over-hyped young adult book.
I didn't really expected to wow me in
the same way because I am just insanely
jaded like that. But I loved this book so much.
I will just say I gave it four out of five
stars. It's really, really well done.
There's so much that Angie Thomas
explores in here that I just found to be
so fascinating. She is so honest and real
in this book. The things that her
characters have to deal with, the
situations that they're in, the fact that
you know they talk about how Khalil
wasn't a perfect kid but he didn't
deserve to get shot,
and why even though he wasn't a
perfect kid why he made the choices that
he made. Which is the thing that I think
is missing a lot of narratives. A lot of
people just assume that if you live in
these poor neighborhoods you're a drug dealer,
you're in gangs, you steal or whatever it
is, and so therefore it's justified to
kill you but that really isn't the case.
But the story focuses a lot more about
Starr and her reaction to the situation.
Her own just like fear and even like
slight PTSD that she's dealing with
after being in this situation, how she
fears for her own life and her family
members lives after that point.
Another thing that I really like about
this book is that they explore so many
different types of perspectives. You have
Starr's family. Starr's father was in jail
for a little bit but they also have like
an aunt and uncle and cousin who are
like doctors and live in a different
part of the city and live a much more
like Huxtable-esque life so to speak.
Then you have like other people in the
neighborhood who are like less well-off
than Starr's family is. So you see these
ranges of people which I think is so
fantastic because a lot of times I think
it's easy to obviously stereotype people
and put people in boxes. But this book
does a really great job of showing
a lot more of the complexities and nuances
happening in these neighborhoods.
Another thing that I really like is the fact
that one of Starr's uncles is a police
officer so you get to hear about things
and see things from a police officers
point of view. You see them talk about
things like relationships and
interracial relationships and just what
it's like to grow up as a black teenager
in the modern United States of America.
And it's fantastic. Like I honestly I
think that this is a book that even if
you're someone who doesn't read a lot of
young adult books this is one of those
that sort of transcends beyond that. The
writing I'm not going to pretend like
the writing is the same as reading some
of the best literary fiction that's out
there but this is a really well written
young adult book and I think that's the
story and the emotions that are in here
really carry it
and really just make it the sort of like
modern young adult classic that I think
it's going to be.
Yeah I think Angie Thomas just does a really,
really fantastic job of talking about
these topics without preaching about it.
And she also does a really great job of
exploring things from different points
of views that you don't necessarily
always get to hear about. And I feel like
for that alone
this book is worth picking up. SSo yeah
those are my quick thoughts on The Hate
U Give by Angie Thomas. I wanted to do
an individual book review on that one
because I was just so moved emotionally
by that book. I feel like it's worth
talking about on it's own outside of like
just a general wrap up. So there you go.
If you've read this book, definitely leave a
comment down below letting me know what
you guys thought of it. Or if you have
any questions about the book you can
always get down in the comment section
as well. So yeah, that's all I have for now
and thanks for watching.
