In true Kirsty fashion, I am so late to the party to read this book. I had to read The Hate U Give for the monthly book club at my local Waterstones. I had been wanting to read it for absolutely ages, and having it as the book of the month just gave me that extra motivation to read it. I tend to stray away from VERY hyped up books because I end up being disappointed, but I had a feeling that THUG was a book that wasn’t going to let me down.

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.

I think THUG was the one of the most hyped YA books that I have ever come across. I genuinely cannot think of another book that has been hyped up this much. BUT WHAT IS SO BLOODY BRILLIANT ABOUT THIS BOOK IS THAT IT IS WORTH THE HYPE. Every single word, every single letter is the worth the hype. Angie Thomas has written a beautiful, compelling, moving novel that tells the story of a young black girl affected by police brutality and Thomas uses her wonderful characters as a machine to speak up about the Black Lives Matter movement. I cannot speak for the representation of the black community in The Hate U Give, but the reviews speak for themselves. There has been nothing but excellent comments on the representation in this book.

“That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?”

― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

Another thing that I loved so much about this novel was that Starr actually respected her parents and treated them with love and spoke about them with respect which is something – unfortunately – that you don’t see a lot in YA novels and something that actually upsets me. But it was so refreshing to have Starr look up to her parents and a massive portion of this book was focused on Starr and her family. She has such an amazing family that love, care and support her and they’re always looking out for each other which is brilliant. I love Starr’s mom especially because she is just an invaluable source of support and care for her daughter throughout the novel and she encourages Starr to do as much as she is comfortable with in terms of activism and speaking out about what she is going through. More YA novels need to depict families like this because Angie Thomas did it perfectly! I cannot fault, at all, how she portrayed families.

Another good (and healthy) part of this book was the friendships that Starr had. She could have girl friends without stabbing them in the back and everything being all bitchy, and she could have guy friends without everyone thinking that they liked each other. Starr had an amazing Asian friend called Maya who stood by Starr throughout everything, but then there was this other nasty ‘friend’ called Hailey who is just RACIST, and I think it’s safe to say that everyone who reads this book wants to slap Hailey round the face. She’s such a self-absorbed, racist, obnoxious so-and-so who DEFINITELY get dealth with at the end of the book.

“Brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared. It means you go on even though you’re scared.”

― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

I think that the only… not negative… but meh thing about this book was Chris – Starr’s boyfriend. When I was asked how I felt about him in the book club meeting, I just shrugged and went ‘okay’. Because for me, he was just there. He didn’t really add anything to the story (which I don’t know whether was Thomas’ intention or not?) but he was just a meh character who, everytime we met, Starr would worry about that he was white. I can understand why his colour would be shaky ground for her. I think that Chris definitely became a better character towards the end of the book when he supported Starr and helped her through everything, and I did like it when Starr called Chris out on anything that he said which was problematic. Do I ship them? I don’t know… I guess I didn’t see much of their relationship to form an opinion, but I do think that at the end of the book, they were very cute together.

Overall, this was an amazing book. I learnt a lot about part of the black community and the Black Lives Matter movement. Knowing that it was actually happening in the world made me feel sick. Every time I read about injustices like this, it just makes me want to scream and cry. No one should have to go through crap like this. No one. But people do. And that’s the horrible truth that lies in this book. Black people get shot by police and the police get away with it, but THUG tackles this issue head on and is just a fantastic book to read.