The Book
The book is a young adult novel set in present day that depicts racialized police brutality through the perspective 16-year-old African American high school student Starr Carter. Starr is caught between two worlds as she spends her days attending a predominantly white, prestigious preparatory school and her nights in the low-income neighbourhood in which her family lives. After an encounter with a police officer leaves her unarmed friend dead, readers follow Starr’s experience as she navigates the protests, media coverage, and political rhetoric that follow. A #1 New York Times bestseller, The Hate U Give quickly gained popularity for its depiction of discrimination against blacks within America’s society and legal system and the racial anxieties that arise as a result.
The copy I am using is the original 464-page edition published on February 28th, 2017. The dimensions of this particular edition are 8.25 × 5.5 × 1.41 inches.
The Hate U Give is only produced in a hardcover format.
The Hate U Give is Angie Thomas’ debut novel. She was the first African American student to graduate from the creative writing program at Belhaven University and has noted that her experiences as a student at a predominantly white college coming from a black neighbourhood has shaped her writing (Mesure 2017).