Angie Thomas – THE HATE U GIVE is probably the best YA written in the last ten years. First, let me say straight up, I’m a white woman who’s never experienced racism. I’ve experienced sexism. But the closest I’ve come to experiencing real racism was listening to someone call Italians “dirty” while at a book fair. No one has ever called the police on me for sitting in a Starbucks or working out a gym. My first response to “Black lives matter” was “All lives matter.” Then I read this book and it changed my mind. It opened my eyes to the kind of fear people of color face on a daily basis. I’ve never feared the police. They’re heroes, right? But sometimes, they get it wrong. And when they get it wrong, people die. Only nobody punishes them. Nobody stops it or does anything to prevent it from happening again. Instead, they put blame on the dead. They shouldn’t have been where they were, worn what they wore, said what they said. Angie does an incredible job of presenting all the ugly sides to racism in this novel. Main character Star has a cop in her family – in…
