Book Review: The Hate U Give

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood 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 afterward, 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.

Review: How do I even start? To put it simply, I absolutely loved this book with everything within me. It was everything I knew I wanted and everything that I didn't know I wanted. This book made me laugh and cry (it also made me procrastinate on a lot of things).

The main character is Starr and I loved her with all of my heart. She literally reminds me of myself because almost everything that she thought​, I have those exact same thoughts. Like when she's talking about having to switch her persona depending on where she is, I was screaming internally because of the relatability. The other characters were amazing, too. Everyone had this realness to them that I've missed in literature and seeing characters that reminded me of people in my neighborhood brought tears to my eyes at least twice.

I thought the plot of the story was kind of slow because majority of the book was about how she felt and what was happening with the trial. This is important but I felt like it dragged a little. However, the characters made up for that weakness in the story. The subplots were amazing, though. There was a love subplot but instead of being the stereotypical love story in ya books it dealt with interracial dating. There was also the fact that she dealt with other realistic teenager things! This is probably the first book I've read that portrayed a realistic teenager's life. Authors! Please take note!

Overall, I loved this book with all of my heart and I definitely recommend reading it before the movie comes out.

Diversity: 1
Characters: 1
Setting: 1
Plot: 0.5
Enjoyment: 1
Total: 4.5