The horrors of racism just never cease. A few days ago, a 22-year-old black man was shot to death in his own backyard, when cops supposedly mistook his cell phone for a gun.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas has just such a tragedy at its core, when a black teenager is shot point blank, the killer cop claiming that he mistook a hairbrush for a gun. The book may be aimed at a YA readership, but it attacks racism in the US like a sledgehammer and has turned out to be one of the most popular and acclaimed books in recent months.

The young writer creates in 16-year-old Starr, a brave black girl, who sees by the end of the story, that for a black person in racist America, there is no choice but to fight.

Starr’s parents, Maverick and Lisa, are bringing their children in a small town black ghetto called Garden Heights, but also trying to give them a way to a better life by sending them to an elite white school in an affluent white neighbourhood. All around her, Starr can see poverty and anger at the lack of opportunity for black kids, and their inevitable descent into crime. Teenaged boys and some girls get drawn into street gangs, and risk their lives by getting into the crosswires of cops and rival gangs.

At the age of ten, Starr saw her best friend killed in a random gangland shooting. The trauma stays in her mind, and blows up again when she witnessed the killing of her childhood friend Khalil by a white cop. Starr and her siblings are taught never to get confrontational with the cops, to keep their hands up, and refrain from making sudden moves. Khalil makes the error of getting aggressive with a white policeman, who shoots him without a qualm.

Starr has a white boyfriend Chris, one of her best friends is white, the other Chinese, and she never imagined that she would one day have to take a stand for people of her race. Her immediate instinct is to deny the existence of a small-time drug dealer in her life, but the injustice of the killing of an unarmed boy, and the attempt to discredit Khalil as a gangster makes her overcome her fear and agree to appear before a grand jury. She also sees how the cops humiliate her father by forcing him to lie face down on the ground as they search him; it is their way of warning her against speaking out against one of their own.

The incident of ‘encounter’ killings of black men is so common that were it not for protests by black people, the media would probably not even notice. Starr’s uncle is a cop, and he witnesses helplessly as the incident ignites the Garden Heights community and riots break out. Starr unwittingly becomes the centre of the storm that lashes the town.

The book comes out of Thomas’s own experiences, and though there is rage as well as poignancy in the pages, there is also hope tinged with love. Chris is a wonderfully written character, a rich brat with amazing courage and empathy. Starr is surrounded by people who love her, not just her parents and grandmother but also her uncles, aunt, cousins, and a half-brother, Seven. Thomas is not blind or naïve enough to suggest that there is no crime or violence in the ghettos, but her book makes a case for understanding the underlying problems and trying to solve them.

Thomas’s descriptions are evocative, her ear for colloquial dialogue impeccable. The Hate U Give is an outstanding debut novel, powerful, haunting and so topical.

The Hate U Give

By Angie Thomas

Published By: Balzer + Bray

Pages: 444