RaveThe Atlantic...Thomas’s debut novel offers an incisive and engrossing perspective of the life of a black teenage girl as Starr’s two worlds converge over questions of police brutality, justice, and activism ... The novel goes on to raise cogent and credible counter-arguments to the flattening narratives often presented by authorities and echoed by many media outlets in shooting cases involving young black males. As a book written for teens, The Hate U Give reminds readers of just how often racialized violence is carried out against that age group ... Thomas’s novel keenly understands the dangers of defaulting to the cop/vigilante versus \'thug\' framing device: The deceased get put on trial, rather than their killers ... Thomas’s intimate writing style and the novel’s first-person perspective taps fully into Starr’s shock, pain, and outrage during the shooting and its aftermath ... it can help generate deeper understanding ... In addition to being an engagingly written story, Thomas’s novel is a vital new contribution to the white-dominated publishing industry ... thanks to Thomas’s absorbing storytelling, those who read The Hate U Give will be right beside Starr, grappling with understanding entrenched prejudice, where it comes from, and what role she—and those at home—have in exposing and combatting it.
