I remember a question on Goodreads about The Hate U Give, saying which would be better to read, THUG or Dear Martin. IIRC, the most popular answer given was something along the lines of "is it better to breathe or to drink water".

Maybe it's because this came out later (I Think), but Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro never came up!

But basically, that Goodreads question and my answer to it kept me up after I dried my tears from this book last night.

I firmly believe if you can only read one, or at least one to start with, and non-fiction about policing is off the table, and you are white, you should read this one.

I know that's a pretty bold statement! I will back it up, I promise.

Undeniably, all books in this micro-genre of "Police Brutality fiction" at least consider the white audience reading it. I've been told they're too big a market to ignore, I don't know if that's still true, but a lot of people believe it.

But all the books approach different angles while considering a partially-white audience. I'm gonna keep these comparisons short because it's been over a year since I've read the other books, please note there are more to them than this.
The Hate U Give shows that some cops at the very least, are not as corrupt or racist as others. It also shows Code-switching and the problem with white feminism. These are important! I won't deny it!
Dear Martin is mostly about how even being the perfect black boy is not good enough, and talks about the often spat out idea of how "Martin Luther King Jr. would be disappointed in BLM" by having the protagonist write what are effectively diary entries addressed to Dr. King (who to be clear, is long dead because this is the modern day). Obviously this is important!
Anger is a Gift deals with organizing protests (and the ways cops try to destroy these protests, this is like at least a 3rd of the book), the problem with white savior complexes, the problem with school funding being tied to tests, and what I think is most important of all: Complacency.

Do you want to know why people talk about defunding or abolishing the police? Because even if police offer relative is, according to you, not a violent, racist cop, they are complacent in a system. Maybe your Uncle John, a cop, didn't shoot an unarmed black child, but did he even try to stop it? Did he try to have justice done to the child's family by calling for accountability for the person who shot the child? I really doubt it. Many of us are guilty of complacency, just oftentimes with less deadly consequences, or consequences we're deliberately ignoring. That is the essence of Hashtag ACAB.

I'm not saying Dear Martin or The Hate U Give don't deal with this. But I feel it's clearest, most-spelled out in Anger is a Gift And that is why I say to start with this one if you are white. Because we often don't think about complacency. 

Very diverse and beautiful, but definitely a difficult read with a lot of tragedy. I have a lot of respect for the how the topics of racism, poverty, ableism, and more were handled. But I did find fault in how many of the side characters existed only to prop up the main character. Obviously they're his friends, but they felt very one dimensional compared to his (Moss') complexities. 

Even if the ending is slightly ambiguous, it gives a strong message about a fight that's not over and how it will be fueled by support for each other- and anger, in the best way.

A good read and a look into relevant topics such as racism, including systemic racism, and police brutality. Inclusive cast of characters as well.

Anger Is a Gift is a dense read - it's full of detail, full of emotion and reflection, full of conflict and growth. It captures the burden of filling a highly visible role in organizing action: the emotional and psychological toll, the weight of carrying a responsibility to the community, the threats and criticism from people who don't understand the importance of this work. This is the first young adult book I've ever read that shows the work that goes into organizing and participating in movements and actions, that shows that actions don't happen without planning and protocols for protecting participants. 

Moss, over the course of the book, stops letting people from positions of privilege and power get away with distancing themselves from the results of their actions. Many characters from a variety of backgrounds are forced to confront the ways that their actions have hurt the people around them. They aren't let off the hook for having good intentions: instead, Moss shows all of them how their actions have compounded injustice and systems of inequity. 

This is also a deeply emotional read, and Moss doesn't get a tidy, happy resolution. Readers will feel the weight he and his loved ones take on and the price they pay to work toward justice. There is hope, but there is also pain, loss, and grief. 

This book, like T.H.U.G. and Dear Martin and All American Boys focuses heavily on police brutality and the murder of people of color by the police. This book feels extremely realistic and painful the way those books of a similar theme feel. This book adds a layer because the main character is queer, so there is also a strong focus on intersectionality that I don't see a lot of in similar books. There were times when the book dragged a little, where the plot didn't move as quickly as I would have liked. But overally, this is an absolutely remarkable book that I'm so glad exists in the world. I cannot wait to read this authors next book.

Anger Is A Gift begins as a romance in the middle of a terrible situation and shifts into depicting personal and communal rage at racism (systemic and specific) and police brutality as that situation is escalated by the school under the excuse of protection and safety

It begins with new happiness in the midst of living on after trauma and then slowly veers into (fully justified and well-portrayed) anger and rage because systemic racism and police brutality don't pause. Because there's a significant change in the tone partway through, I'm going to talk about the book as two distinct sections.

Early on the newly budding romance is tender and light, hesitant but heartfelt in a way that came up off the page. The dynamic between Moss and Javier was really cute and I loved all their scenes together. Moss has a lot of friends, and it can be tough to convey distinct personalities for everyone very quickly but this handled that really well. Just in case anyone read this and felt that it was unrealistic for so many kinds of queer kids to be hanging out together, please know that's really common, and often happens even if none of us know we're queer at the time. It made me really happy to see this group of kids who figured out enough early enough to get to be themselves with their peers while still in school. There's also a lot of discussion about the problems at the school, problems that have been going on for years and just keep getting worse due to various kinds of systemic racism, the most immediate of which is a lack of funding. 

Partway through the book turns due to a change of policy at the school which permanently injures at least one student. The shift in tone felt more like a change in emphasis at first, as it became apparent that this wasn't just a romance in the midst of unjust events, but actually a book about that situation and those events. The escalation from there was really well handled as a story. This is the part where it doesn't say right to say I loved specific bits of the plot, because I didn't love them and I wasn't supposed to. They're terrible events and the book doesn't give a solution for them, but that was the whole point. It conveyed helplessness and rage at injustice, both systemic and specific. 

Book CWs for racism, police brutality, murder, descriptions and depictions of police tactics during a protest.