Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter is torn between two worlds. She attends high school at the fancy, suburban, almost-all-white Williamson Prep, and, when school is over, she drives forty-five minutes home to the much rougher black neighborhood of Garden Heights, where “you rarely see white people.” Starr has learned that “Williamson is one world and Garden Heights is another and [she has] to keep them separate.” When Starr sneaks out with her brother’s sister Kenya to a party, there’s a shooting and the guests all flee. Starr, drives away with her longtime friend Khalil. But a police officer pulls them over, and “Khalil breaks a rule—he doesn’t do what the cop wants.” Choosing to question why they were pulled over at all, Khalil, unarmed, is shot and killed. Starr goes to the police station and speaks to the detectives, but it soon becomes clear that the authorities “see no reason to arrest the officer." Starr needs to decide if she’ll go public with her story, thereby giving her Williamson world a clear view of her Garden Heights roots. Will she face the media circus and make sure the world knows “what went down,” or is she “too afraid to speak?"
I think what sets this book above and beyond is the undeniably superior writing. Starr is a complete, complex character that drew me in from the very first page. Her struggles feel authentic and compelling. The narrative also has a superb supporting cast, and the plot is rich and satisfying. Far more rich and satisfying than the short blurb above makes it sound. It should become an enduring classic, and a chronicle of the highest order in regards to the serious issues it takes on.
I’m going to buy a copy of Thomas’s second book, ON THE COME UP, next chance I get.
--Lynn
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