A Story Well Told

 I don't really know what I was expecting when I first started reading this book. When it comes to political or social issues, I feel like there's always so much extra crap piled onto what should be a fairly straightforward issue. A cop shoots an unarmed kid in the back, clearly murder. A white boy and a black girl dating, who gives a damn?

However, I think this story does a good job at getting across a message simply because it focuses more on being a good story. There are many books on both sides of the aisle that talk about these issues but do so in a way that only makes it a small flash in the pan. Typing out "BLM" on a page doesn't do much in the way of convincing people to change. Crafting a story with relatable characters, intense scenes, even a bit of comedy among the darkness truly sets the message trying to be conveyed to new heights. People move on from one political hot topic to the next, but a good story will last the ages and continuing spreading the intended message.

This novel goes with the classic idea of "Show don't tell" and does it well. Telling someone Black Lives Matter can end up lost in translation. Showing how they matter, showing a story that people know and can relate to is another thing entirely. Even if this was all switched out from white and black people to elves, orcs, dragons, and with a castle instead of a store, the same core message would still be there. The story itself is structured in such a way that the message is woven into the very fabric of it.

And I've always believed that subtly and deniability is a better thing than outright telling the reader something. People are able to focus on the message we as writers want to say without all that extra crap added onto it. The Hate You Give does just that I think. Well not entirely, as the book has a story about a white cop shooting an unarmed black kid in the back. I mean more so in the way that people will read this book and be so enthralled by the characters, the jokes, the tension, that they'll see things as they really are without preconceived notions bogging them down.

There really isn't much else I can say than that I enjoyed the book. I'm sure my beliefs aligning with that of the author helped, but I genuinely just liked reading it like I would any other book I read for fun. The fact that this book hits all the right emotional beats, from sorrow, to anger, to even joy, makes it good. The fact I either love the characters or love to hate them makes it good. The fact that I now understand other people and their lives a bit better now makes this a good book. And the little references to pop culture was just a bit of extra fun to really put the cherry on top.