The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, 444 pages.

I've seen all the buzz around this book and also the film adaptation, but I never gave it the time of day. I honestly didn't even know what it was actually about until around a week ago, and decided to check it out. I am SO glad that I did. This was by far the best book that I read in 2018. I think that with how society is today, this is something that everyone should read and could learn from. I found myself hysterically laughing, hysterically crying and everything in between. I had chills when I read the line, "When I was twelve, my parents had two talks with me. One was the usual birds and bees. The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me." I had to stop and collect my thoughts for a few minutes after reading that line because, to be honest, it never occurred to me that that was a "thing". When I'm stopped by a cop, I'm thinking of every way I can possibly get out of the speeding ticket I'm inevitably going to get. This book really opened my eyes to the privilege that some people have just by being a different race, sexual orientation, etc.

Starr Carter basically lives a double life. She is a typical sixteen-year-old female while attending the prep school her parents pay for her attend, an hour away from their home. When she's at home, Starr is a not so typical sixteen-year-old who has witnessed her best friend, Natasha, being murdered in a drive-by shooting at the age of ten. Starr has learned to balance the two lives she lives, but everything comes crashing around her when another life-long best friend, Khalil, is murdered by a white cop during a supposedly routine traffic stop. To make matters worse, Khalil was completely unarmed. Now, Starr's life is turned upside down, and her neighborhood has turned into a war zone. His death has become a national headline, and said headlines are slandering Khalil, calling him a drug dealer and a thug. Starr knows that is far from the truth, and is also the only one who knows in entirety what happened that night. The only problem with that is that Starr has been scared into silence thanks to the violence that is surrounding her home, and also the threats coming from a local drug lord.