Yesterday I finished another excellent book. This one was labeled as young adult, but I found it somewhere in our Eastcastle library so decided to give it a try. I'd heard people talking about it awhile ago and have been trying to broaden my reading perspectives. So I sat in our comfortable living room chair, turned on the table lamp and opened the cover.
A few hours later I pulled myself away to stretch my legs and get ready to go down for dinner. It wasn't easy to close the cover.
The next day I picked the novel up with my morning cup of coffee and finished within an hour. I am a fast reader and this book kept me interested enough to want to quickly turn each page. The author painted a clear picture of a family living, working and loving in a less-than-ideal part of the city. Her words made me stop and think and look at situations with a different level of understanding....maybe.
A few quotes jumped off the narrative:
"Brave doesn't mean you're not scared. It means you go on even though you're scared."
" Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug. He lived, but not nearly long enough, and for the rest of my life I'll remember how he died. Fairy tale? No. But I'm not giving up on a better ending."
"And at the end of the day, you don't kill someone for opening a car door. If you do, you
shouldn't be a cop."
In our America 2023 so many books are banned and this one is on the list. Many schools have decided that it has too much violence and profanity and gives the reader an anti-police message. While I agree the book portrays the story with a gritty realism it does just that....portrays reality for many Americans.
And my humble opinion it doesn't hurt a high-school student or better yet an adult to get a dose of the reality that is, perhaps, very different than any they have known. The Hate U Give shows a side of America that we may not be proud of.....but it is one side of America.
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