The Hate U Give

Everyone in America should read The Hate U Give before graduating high school. For someone like me who grew up in white America, this feels similar to Between the World and Me: it's not really my place to critique a book like this, since it's such an intimate look at growing up black in America that any critiques would just be a critique of the black experience. If you're white and are relatively new to conversations about race, or if you're not sure you agree with the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a great book to pick up and learn from. It's pretty breezy and you could knock it out in a weekend.

Note on the age-appropriateness of the subject matter if you weren't aware: there's a good amount of profanity throughout, as well as teenage sexuality, drug dealing, and violence. I would say that this shows police brutality and that we should be sure that kids don't have to engage with that, but then again, that's the whole point: America lets kids in certain neighborhoods deal with police brutality all the time, and it needs to change. Black Lives Matter.