“Oh, it’s definitely surreal,” says the 31-year-old Thomas, on the phone from Jackson. Last year, a film adaptation was released, which has been a critical and commercial success. It has now sold more than 2m copies globally.
It was a hit here too, and named overall winner of the 2018 Waterstones children’s book prize. THUG, published in early 2017, went straight into the bestseller chart in the US and stayed there for a year. The story speeds up now: the novel became The Hate U Give ( THUG), a YA sensation about a 16-year-old girl called Starr who witnesses her friend Khalil being shot by the police and turns to activism. Thomas’s break came when she cold-contacted a literary agent who was doing a Twitter Q&A. “Yeah, I had more than 150 rejections for that one,” says Thomas matter-of-factly. She had previously written a children’s book, but hadn’t had any interest from agents. At nights – and during quiet periods in the day, she furtively admits – she worked on a young adult novel inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Really not very long ago, Angie Thomas was a secretary to a bishop at a megachurch in Jackson, Mississippi. Want more of Garden Heights? Catch Maverick and Seven’s story in Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas's powerful prequel to The Hate U Give.I n book publishing, it seems, they still do fairytales. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.īut what Starr does-or does not-say could upend her community. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline.
The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. "A powerful, in-your-face novel." - Horn Book (starred review) "A marvel of verisimilitude." - Booklist (starred review) "Heartbreakingly topical." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) This story is important." - Kirkus (starred review) Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best.
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