The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas (2017)
“A sixteen-year-old Black girl witnesses her unarmed childhood friend shot dead by a cop — and the only weapon she has left is her voice.”
EraContemporary
Pages444
Difficulty★☆☆☆☆ Accessible
AP Appearances2
Character Analysis
The novel's formal and moral center. Starr's double consciousness — Garden Heights Starr versus Williamson Starr — is not a split but a survival strategy that the novel's events make increasingly untenable. She is funny before she is brave, and the bravery is more convincing because of the humor. Her refusal to let Khalil become a symbol at the expense of becoming a person is the novel's ethical core.