THE HATE U GIVE MOIVE AND BOOK REVIEW

The Hate U Give Book Review:  This is a powerful book about a sixteen year old African-American girl named Starr Carter who lives in Garden Heights, a mostly African-American neighborhood owned by a gang, the King Lords, who deal drugs. Her father, “Big Mav” Carter, used to work for them, but he quit after being in jail for 3 years and instead has a grocery store. Starr and her siblings Sekani (brother, 9) and Seven (half brother, 17) go to a school that is not very diverse. She also has a white boyfriend named Chris and 2 friends, Maya, who is Asian, and Hailey, who is all-American. One day she goes to a party in Garden Heights with her fried Kenya (who is King, the major crime lord’s daughter, but she’s a good person.) and she finds her old childhood friend Kahlil, and they chat for a little while when shots were fired. He offered to drive her to to make sure she got home safely. While they are in the car, she finds out that Kahlil deals drugs for the King Lords, but he is not a King Lord himself, and only does it to repay the debt his formerly drug addict mom has to them, and also to pay for himself and jphis little brothers needs and his grandmothers hospital bills because she got fired when she found out that she has cancer. Then they got pulled over. Something about his turn signal. The white police officer told Kahlil to get out of the car and to get his license. When the officer went back to his car, he tells Kahlil not to move. Kahlil does move though, to get a hairbrush (I still don’t know why) and to ask Starr if she’s OK. The officer fired 3 shots. Kahlil was dead. (The Officer later claimed he saw a gun.  It was a hairbrush.) Starr, as the only witness is caught up in a whirlwind of action as the only witness. She give interviews, and on live TV tells the whole world about the King Lords, and ther is one night of total chaos at the end of the book, which I won’t give away because it is FULL of surprises. You want to know? TOO BAD. GO READ THE BOOK.

The Movie: Honestly, this movie IS THE GOSH DARN DIDILEST (autocorrect hates me) BEST MOVIE-FROM-BOOK ADAPTATION I HAVE SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. They stayed insanely close to the plot, only downplayed a few roles, and only left out a few minor details that only I would notice are missing. All the actors were great ( can we get a hand for Amandla Stenburgs amazing acting?) and it was an emotional, amazing, awakening, roller coaster that made my mother cry.