Contemporary isn’t usually my genre, but this was really well put together. A good follow up to The Hate U Give.
This is one of those reviews that makes my review backlog pile up, because I’m having a hard time saying stuff about it. So I’m just going to wing it and live with the fact that my review will not be as good as I want it to be, or say what I want it to say (whatever that is? I don’t even know).
I liked this book quite a bit, but not as much as I liked THUG. Angie Thomas continues to be great at centering her main characters in real, human emotions, giving them three-dimensional family lives, and working in social issues naturally as part of the plot, rather than as the point. Bri is also a more difficult character to like, because she’s more angry than Starr (rightfully) but also less emotionally mature. Bri is very smart and talented, but she is also very young, and makes decisions based on her emotions without thinking them over first. Over the course of the book, she does mature and come to new understandings about the people around her and their place in her life, and her place in theirs.
The details about Bri’s fledgling rap career felt really authentic, which makes sense as I found out after finishing that the author was a teenaged rapper, also.
Oh my god this is one of the worst reviews I have ever written. And I’m not sure it would have been much better had I written it a month ago, either. I said almost nothing I wanted to say, but I just wanted to be done with it. Go read ElCicco’s or Caitlin_D’s.
Long story short: This book is good, different to its predecessor, but worthy in its own right.