The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas

I'm going to say this one more time in case anyone missed my multiple IG posts, but I'm going to be an Angie Thomas fan for life. The Hate U Give (THUG) is the second Angie Thomas book I've read this year and I stand by my earlier review of On the Come Up that her writing feels real and her characters are authentic. Too many times YA novels get teens wrong, or work too hard to teach lessons that the authors forget to include real people with real issues. Kids are a lot like adults in that they're complex and full of conflicting motivations - they just haven't figured out how to fake it yet.

THUG wastes no time setting up the central conflict - namely that the protagonist Star Carter is present when a police traffic stop ends with the murder of her friend Khalil. Star tries to process her heartbreak over the death of her friend, her own trauma of witnessing it first hand, and the complex social set she's created for herself by attending an exclusive private school. All of these things inform who she is and how she reacts to the situation.

Star's mother and father present as strong parental figures in the story, with both of them providing stability and strength to Star in her time of need. That her father is an ex-gang member who is constantly battling with figures from his past, complicates their family life, but the love they share between them is real and deep.

I basically loved every character in this book (except King and Haley obviously) but each character is used for a specific purpose and creates such a vivid picture. The overarching theme of police shootings is timely and presented in a way that even real dummies should be able to understand the human cost of police violence.

I'm planting my flag in the Angie Thomas fan club soil. I'm going to read whatever she comes out with next. 

5/5 Stars. 

Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigations of a Lifetime - Ron Stallworth

I'm definitely a "read the book before seeing the movie kind of person" especially when a movie is about real life events because I know Hollywood has a tendency to make things very "Hollywood". So I was very excited to see this book was available from my library.

Quick and to the point, Black Klansman tells the story of Ron Stallworth's undercover infiltration into the KKK in Colorado Springs in 1979. As a black man, this was an extraordinary feat, and the way he was able to quickly gain the trust of not only the local chapter but also David Duke himself is amusing and a testament to Ron's quick thinking and long range vision for where he wanted to take the investigation. 

Told by Stallworth himself, Black Klansman gives the details of Stallworth's involvement and the intricate politics walked in the police department in order to make this investigation a go. The reader gets to laugh along with Stallworth as the unwitting klan members enthusiastically support his taking over the local chapter and their sincere affirmations that they would absolutely know if they were talking to a black person on the phone (they clearly did not). 

I'm excited to see the movie now. Spike Lee is a master story teller, and while Ron lived the story of a lifetime, his livelihood doesn't rely on his story-craft.  It would all be a good laugh at these silly dum-dums if they weren't so ignorant but also evil. I had no idea that Colorado had such a racist history but there's likely politicians with klan connections in every state in the union when we look closely enough. 

In the face of such ignorant hate, Black Klansman is a good reminder that it's not enough to just not be racist. We need to be anti-racist.

3.5/5 Stars. 

The Lake House - Kate Morton

On a recommendation from my sister - who almost never steers me wrong - I picked up The Lake House, as I was in need of a new audio book for training for this 1/2 marathon (two more weeks folks).  I was a bit astonished to see a run time of 21 hours though! To put this in perspective, my average book for running is about 10-11 hours. This meant I'd be "reading" this for about three weeks. (Actually it took me more than a month - ouch).

So I settled in for a long story. And it was long. But also good. I liked the writing, even when Morton did get a little long winded. The story is framed by Sadie Sparrow, a London detective who is on administrative leave following a press leak regarding an investigations she was assigned to looking into the disappearance of Maggie Bailey.

As a concession to her partner, Sadie goes to Cornwall to stay with her grandfather, Bertie on holiday. She can't get the Bailey case out of her mind and wonders if it has anything to do with a recent letter she received from the baby she gave up for adoption as a teenager. Layers of several mysteries that are woven together.

To distract herself from all of this, Sadie takes up a keen interest in the Lake House she discovers while running. Turns out that the family that lived there moved shortly after a tragedy in 1933. The tragedy? The disappearance of an 11 month old boy, Theo.

The story then vacillates between Sadie's story in 2003, to 1933 and before told through the eyes of Alice and Elinor Edyvane (yeah sorry, I'm not sure if I'm spelling that right, I only listened to the book). It turns out Theo's disappearance hinges on the family secrets of several of the Edyvane family's individual members. The story gives away just enough to keep you guessing throughout, until the end, when it all starts to fall together and the reader has quite the jump start on Sparrow. I started to lament that she might not be a very good detective after all.

While Morton is certainly long on supposition and story-telling to the point where you don't really care to hear all the details of the moth eaten area rug that serves no purpose in plot - what she does end up giving you is very full character development. Sadie, Alice and Elinor are complete characters, with back story, motivation, failures, character flaws and all the rest. So the completion of the novel - a rounding up of both the Edyvane and Bailey cases, while maybe a bit eye-rollingly coincidental and predictable, is none-the-less very satisfying.

4/5 Stars.