Book Review: The Hate U Give

Starr is a sixteen-year-old black teenager who witnesses the shooting of her unarmed friend, Khalil. Starr lives in the primarily black, lower-class neighborhood of Garden Heights but attends Williamson Prep, a wealthy, predominantly white school in another town.

Starr constantly feels pulled between two versions of herself—Williamson Starr and Garden Heights Starr—and changes her speech patterns out of fear that her classmates will think she is “ghetto.” Traumatized by Khalil’s death, Starr is initially reluctant to speak up about the shooting and doesn’t tell Maya and Hailey, her closest friends at school, about what she saw.

The shooting also makes her reevaluate her relationship with Chris, her boyfriend from a white, wealthy family.

This had an impact on me because I witnessed  my big cousin get shot & killed. We were all at a graduation party and my cousin asked all the kids did they wanna go to the park of course kids said yea, so we all went to the park, and we were all playing but my big cousin was at the car with his friend. Then a car came riding down the street slowly. I knew something was up, so I got all my little cousins and told them to get down. But, Dink my big cousin was still at the car and the car rode the window down and starting shooting and shot my big cousin Dink in head. When I saw him hit that ground I just knew he was gone. I ran back to my uncle's house where the graduation party was & told my family that Dink is dead & he got shot in his head. I was  traumatized for life…

That’s the end of my story.