Age: High School
Tough Issue/Trigger warning: Murder of a friend, police brutality
First line: "I shouldn't have come to this party."

This book is a remarkable, compelling, fantastically written contribution to the Young Adult genre and I will recommend this to everyone that is within my line of sight, for infinity.

Thomas expertly balances the main plot point--Kahlil's murder at the hands of a police officer--with the main character's various identities colliding or newly emerging. Starr lives in a poor black neighborhood but attends a suburban prep school with a predominantly white, privileged population. Starr has grown up with a proud and firm belief in her black identity. Her father, a small business owner, has made Starr and her siblings memorize the 10 point program of the Black Panther party and quotes by Malcom X. But at her predominantly white school, Starr must constantly keep her black identity in check, not wanting to come off as too ghetto, changing her voice and mannerisms. She has never invited her friends or boyfriend over to her house.

When her childhood friend, Kahlil, is shot and killed by a police officer right in front of her eyes, Starr's identities start overlapping while also introducing a new identity: advocate against police brutality.

There are some very complex relationships that Starr must handle. These include: a self-centered white friend that brushes off a racist comment and other underlying privileged behavior; her very close relationship with her uncle who is also a police officer; and her rich white boyfriend that truly cares about Starr but has not been let in to her black identity.

Now to the pivotal importance of this book: the overwhelming subjection of black people to police brutality and murders by police. Not only is there a raw depiction of unprovoked murder but the aftermath of the murder is the most important part of this book, occupying a clear majority of the text. Kahlil's memory soon becomes trashed by everyone in power and by those that blindly support law enforcement, no matter their crime. An incredibly poignant scene is when Starr goes in to the police station to testify. The investigators guide Starr's testimony in order for her to discredit and incriminate Kahlil, causing Starr to state that "he didn't pull the trigger on himself" (103). Soon after, the cop's father attempts to humanize the cop on media outlets, while Kahlil is labeled as a drug dealer. Starr gets her chance to tell her story on a popular television show (but I could never see that happening in real life). Thomas even presents the exploitation of protest when several kids at Starr's prep school use a protest as a means to skip class.

While this is only one--and a fictional--perspective on police brutality and the tragedy of murder, it hits a lot of serious undertones of race and the blind glorification of the police. As someone that has seen the direct result of police brutality and the demonization of the victim, this was a hard read but an essential contribution to literature. Printz 2018, baby.

Book club questions:
1. The Hate U Give Little Infants F*cks Everybody--Why did Thomas choose this Tupac song as the title of her book?
2. Discuss the interrogation scene.
3a. Why is Starr conflicted about her identity?
3b. Upon pitching her idea for a Black Lives Matter YA book, Thomas said, "I knew there were calls for diversity in children’s lit, but you always wonder as a person of color, how diverse is too diverse?" How does this question mirror Starr's conflict about being a person of color in a white world? How does this represent our "color blind" culture where white people embrace diversity insofar as it doesn't 'disturb' them?

More to come...

Every teenager struggles with misperceptions of themselves and may stay engaged with this book because of their empathy with Starr.