Rating: ★★★★★
Recommend: Yes exclamation point
Genres: Young adult, contemporary
Add it to your TBR: Goodreads, Skoob
This is the fastest I have given 5 stars to a book in my life. A few pages in I just knew. This book follows the story of Starr, a 16-year-old black girl raised in a poor and mainly black neighborhood and studying in a overwhelmingly white school in the suburbs. She puts an incredible amount of mental load into belonging to both places, going to the extent of changing her speech and temper to fit in. One night, leaving a party with her friend Khalil, two cops stop the car – and murder Khalil right in front of her eyes. We then follow the struggles as Starr seeks justice for what is clearly a murder the cop should be charged for. This book is fantastic, it made me laugh out loud, bite my fingers and gasp so many times. It makes you angry, frustrated, scared. Oh my god, this was such a powerful story, so real you feel like it could anytime be showed on the news. It grasps perfectly the struggles of black Americans to get justice, the deafness of white people who only look for the reasons why the murder of black people is justified and the hypocrisy of racists. If this books doesn’t make you angry, nothing will.
Every person on Earth should read it, really.
Veredict: Need I say more? Read it now. Trigger warning: this book depicts violence and abusive relationships, and has mention of drug abuse.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Rating: ★★★★
Rating: ★★★★★
Rating: ★★★★☆