The Hate U Give Review

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not an audiobook gal. I have a hard time listening while doing other things in my life. (I’m not great at multitasking). I really can only listen to an audiobook when I’m alone and traveling whether it be walking or driving. This summer I would often make short drives to see my significant other and that offered me a great opportunity to listen to audiobooks. I don’t want to prematurely say this, but I might have discovered a new interest in listening to audiobooks, but I don’t want to jinx anything!

Let’s go, Grace, get on with the book review!

I gave the audiobook for The Hate You Give a try. It was totally worth it. The narrator, Bahni Turpin does a phenomenal job of giving different characters unique yet realistic voices. She also totally understands popular culture references and how a teenager talks–which I really appreciated. (This is probably because this is her job and she’s quite good at it, but also I just felt the need to really point it out how good of job she did at her own job).

Starr and her family are so wonderfully human and beautiful. I love each member of her family (will they each get a book??). I would love a book about Seven headed to college, but I’m probably getting ahead of myself. I think Thomas did an amazing job creating a whole family and a whole world that was involved in this book.

This book has multiple plots going on at once and it made it an incredibly rich story. Although we only hear from Starr’s perspective, we also get to see into the lives of Maya, Seven, Devante and even her parents’ lives. As I said earlier, I would definitely read more about this family because I loved them so much. I enjoyed the happy moments, and I cried during the sad moments.

I am not someone who loves to get into her feels–especially while driving–but I gladly let the tears fall all the time with this book. There was something so personal about listening to the book. I 100% believe the book is beyond powerful on its own, but the audiobook definitely brought a level to the story I did not anticipate.

This book teaches empathy and about the lives of Black students, their families, and their neighborhoods. It fights police brutality through literature and explicitly calling it out. This is also a story about a girl living her life with the people she loves.

This book deserves the renown. It deserves to be studied in classes. It’s a beautiful story that I learned a lot from–and that’s one of my favorite aspects of fiction is how much we learn from it. I definitely anticipate reading On the Come Up by Thomas as well.

You’ve probably already read this book, so let me know what you thought of it in the comments below!