I mainly hid all of it because of the length.

I spent a long time trying to articulate my thoughts on this. Mostly to justify my rating over the abundance of 5 stars. But I don't need to "justify" anything: the review and rating reflect my experience with the book not anyone else's.

When reading this I was constantly reminded of "Rousseau" by Cyne, in particular the second verse by Rico Suave:

I was born free, but now I'm like a slave to society
Can't get a license without consent to field sobriety
If you have a plan, they say life will flow beautifully
I need tech support like Vanilla Sky
‘Cause someone lied to me, told me shit was cool
I made good grades, but damn, then got kicked outta school
It doesn't matter, my computer doesn't read the data
Even if you're smart, your life still can get shattered
Into little pieces, this is my thesis
Just ‘cause I raised BB in the belly of the beasts
My people died in vain, the pain is on my brain
And how can I get by when held by this mental strain?
I just don't understand, I be's a grown ass man
But every time I see the cops they make me lift my hands
So they can pat me down, and I just don't see how
I played by they rules but they still treat me foul
Damn!

The book is inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, which is concerned with campaigning against systemic racially motivated violence, a significant portion of which is in the shape of police brutality. Police brutality is the main driver of the book as an unarmed black boy is killed by a rattled police officer. The thrust of the book is about our protagonist Starr who was witness to the crime and gets mixed up in the various issues of her society, from speaking out, to her high-crime neighbourhood, as well as the upper-class school she attends.

The idea of leading a "double life" or having two personas that you adopt--one for white people so that you don't appear threatening, the other is your more "natural" persona around close friends and your family--resonated with me. The idea of personas is more nuanced but there's only so much space you can allot to it in this in a book. The core of it is that having to essentially perform when around white people is something non-white people have to do frequently. To have that represented in art is such a significant thing and I'm glad we're getting to a point where these kinds of things are more commonplace.

Kendrick Lamar's "Mortal Man" helps illuminate certain significant aspects in the book as well:
If the government want me dead, plant cocaine in my car
Would you judge me a drug-head or see me as K. Lamar
Or question my character and degrade me on every blog

Spoiler

While Khalil doesn't have evidence planted, he is found to have been dealing drugs, which stimulates a reaction from the public that Khalil in some way "deserves" to have been shot. This was frustrating and poignant because the ways in which people perceive black people: as a threat and therefore any kind of violence dealt to them (us) is justified. If you unspool the logic in terms of desert you see it doesn't hold up. The case in hand: Khalil did not do precisely what he was told but did he deserve to get killed? No. Suppose he had drugs on him, does that mean he deserves to get killed? No. Arrested? Sure. But dead? Hell no. Also of note, Khalil was a teenager. Even if he was a grown man and unarmed he still wouldn't have deserved what happens to him, but it strikes as doubly unfair that it happens to him taking into account his age.

So when Starr's old friend (old as in "ex") says words to the effect that he deserved what he got in virtue of the drugs, I feel her frustration even though it results in actions that I don't agree with: her hitting said old friend.

Speaking of her friend, oh boy. Hailey. The amount of conversations I've had with various Haileys. Gee whizz. The people that hurt you the most are the people you're closest to. The friend who won't see why the things they say are hurtful and brush it off as a joke. It's hard to trust someone like that again and the downfall of that particular friendship is both inevitable and sad.

There are a lot of other things that I wanted to touch on like the positive representation of the parents--a stereotype for black people is absentee fathers--and many others like white people taking advantage of situations for personal gain instead of the issues at hand. But this isn't an essay.

Now why the four stars? It's a bit too long. You can see the size of the book when handling it but you can feel it when reading it. Some of it is down to the liberal margins/font size, but in terms of hyper-detailed mundane things, there are a lot of them and it adds to the bulk. I can appreciate that the point of them is to convey normality in the face of exceptionally adverse circumstances but I think they're excessive to be against the book's favour. It felt draft-level long (and I know I'm a hypocrite for saying that because I do it in my drafts but this is a finished work). Also, some of the action happened quite late in the book so the ending fell a little flat for me. Maybe that's a case of the wrong expectations: I thought the bulk of the book would be the stuff like the trial and her speaking out. Alas. I'm willing to put that on me, though.

Another thing which I don't think is a criticism but an observation: I couldn't help but feel frustrated by Starr with her explaining away racial issues with "you're white!" as a reason for one not trying to explain certain difficulties. I understand the impetus: white people in general have not shown a great propensity to understand the nuances of discrimination and there are specific aspects of race that cannot be bridged between race but in order to progress conversation, the channels of dialogue need to be opened up, even if people don't understand. Starr does open up about that to Chris so this is why it's not a criticism. Maybe it's praise for doing well for further displaying issues of being frank about race.

So overall, a moving book with accessible, pared-down prose, crackling dialogue, and poignant themes. This will be an artefact to identify the contemporary conversation of race.


Addendum to my "artefact" comment: my fear is that this will be held up as the poster-child of literature around race that white liberals while call their favourite and pat themselves on the back for being so socially aware, like To Kill A Mockingbird is/was. I don't want this to be seen as the totality of racial issues in the world, but as it is: a significant portion that will be a piece in a larger tapestry that explores race.