By: Angie Thomas
Plot: About a seventeen year old girl who is witness to a cop shooting and killing her childhood best friend, Khalil.
Thoughts: I have been wanting to read this forever after seeing it EVERYWHERE. There was a lot of hype surrounding this book and luckily it lived up to it. When I was just starting this book, and about 30 pages in, my husband asked me how it was and I responded with sad. I was worried it was just going to be sad the rest of the book too. It wasn't all sad though and there were some lighthearted moments that rounded out the sad. I really liked the main character Starr and all of her insights. I LOVED her parents and her family and liked that they all felt like real people, not just characters in a book.
I read this book really fast, and was totally engrossed in the story the whole time. It was never boring or slow moving. I was bracing myself for something really bad to happen at the end, and I'm glad that didn't happen. Bad stuff did happen obviously, but her family was still all together at the end so I was happy about that.
And yes, this book did make me take a look at my own bias. The part about Starr being worried about Khalil being labeled a "drug dealer" was so true. It's easy to just put one negative label on someone and suddenly that defines their entire life. I'll admit I would feel more sympathy at seeing a headline of a "high school student" or "teenager" that was murdered instead of a "drug dealer". And with the media being what it is these days, they are always going to run with the worst possible headline. I thought it was interesting she showed how "drug dealer" doesn't even begin to describe the type of person he was and it's done intentionally to make you think that he almost deserved it somehow. But he was still a good person with people who loved him. I've also never have to have been afraid that a cop will shoot me when I've been pulled over, and I used to get pulled over A LOT.
Favorite Quotes: "Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right."
"At an early age I learned people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them."
Rating: 4/5 I really liked this book! Definitely a good one for everyone to read.