50 Fun Facts About The Hate U Give

In The Hate U Give, what object in Khalil's car does the officer claim he mistook for a gun?

A hairbrush with a thick black handle lay in the car door, as the activist lawyer April Ofrah later reveals. Protesters turn that fact into a chant.

The title The Hate U Give comes from an acronym coined by which rapper, who wore it as a tattoo?

Tupac Shakur spelled out THUG LIFE as a warning that the hatred society feeds its children comes back to harm everyone. Khalil explains the idea to Starr minutes before the traffic stop.

In The Hate U Give, which 1990s show is Starr's favorite, its theme sung by her boyfriend?

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air mirrors Starr's own life, she says: a teenager sent from a rough neighborhood into a wealthy world. Unlike its hero, she feels she must hide who she is there.

Which actor, known as Rue in The Hunger Games, plays Starr in the 2018 film of The Hate U Give?

Amandla Stenberg was attached to the role almost a year before the novel reached bookstores. The performance won an NAACP Image Award for outstanding actress in a motion picture.

In The Hate U Give, Starr's parents gave her two talks at twelve: one about sex and one about what?

Dealing with the police meant doing as she was told and never talking back. Starr grows frightened when Khalil breaks those rules by asking the officer why he was pulled over.

Which Riverdale star replaced a fired actor as Starr's boyfriend in the film The Hate U Give?

KJ Apa reshot the scenes in April 2018, months after filming had wrapped. YouTuber Kian Lawley lost the part when old footage of him using racial slurs resurfaced.

In The Hate U Give, Starr lives in which fictional, mostly Black neighborhood where her father runs a store?

Garden Heights is home to Starr's family and oldest friends, yet she travels 45 minutes each way to a mostly white private school. The gap between those two worlds drives the novel.

Which pop star plays the friend whose racist remarks end her bond with Starr in the film The Hate U Give?

Sabrina Carpenter joined the cast in August 2017, the year her Disney Channel series Girl Meets World ended. Her character's friendship with Starr breaks up once Starr starts challenging those remarks.

Which Grammy-winning rapper plays Starr's police detective uncle in the 2018 film The Hate U Give?

Common plays the detective who helped raise Starr and serves on the same force as the officer who shot Khalil. Off screen he has an Academy Award too, for the song Glory from the film Selma.

In The Hate U Give, what does the grand jury decide about the officer who shot Khalil?

The jurors vote not to indict him, and Starr hears the news over a car radio thirteen weeks after the shooting. Protests and riots fill the streets within hours.

In The Hate U Give, which mostly white private school does Starr attend, 45 minutes from her home?

Williamson Prep is where Starr has studied for six years, watching every word so that nobody can call her ghetto. Her parents sent her there after a childhood friend was shot.

In The Hate U Give, what is the name of Starr's father, a former gang member who owns a grocery store?

Maverick leads his family in prayer to Black Jesus and teaches his children to speak out. Readers' interest in him as a father led Angie Thomas to write a prequel about his youth.

In The Hate U Give, what is the name of the older half-brother Starr shares with her friend Kenya?

Seven is the son of Starr's father and Kenya's mother, which makes him a brother to both girls. He drives Starr home from school and hesitates to leave for college because of his sisters.

In The Hate U Give, what is the name of Starr's wealthy white boyfriend, whom she hides from her father?

Chris shares Starr's taste in sneakers and old sitcoms, and he stays beside her through a night of riots. That loyalty finally earns him an invitation to go boxing with her father.

In The Hate U Give, what is the name of Starr's uncle, a police detective who helped raise her?

Carlos lives in a wealthier suburb and at first defends his colleague, which strains his bond with Starr. He later admits that nobody should be shot for opening a car door.

In The Hate U Give, which childhood friend did Starr see killed in a drive-by shooting at age ten?

Natasha died in front of Starr, who dived into a rosebush for cover. That makes Khalil the second close friend Starr has watched being shot.

In The Hate U Give, which school friend does Starr punch after she says the officer did everyone a favor?

Hailey had already unfollowed Starr's blog and refused to apologize for a string of racist remarks. The fight gets both girls suspended for three days.

In The Hate U Give, which teenager asks Starr's father for help getting out of a gang?

DeVante had stolen $5,000 from the gang's leader and feared for his life. He ends up living with Starr's uncle and finally offers to turn witness against that leader.

In The Hate U Give, which gang controls Starr's streets and once counted her father as a member?

The King Lords are led by King, the feared drug dealer who lives with the mother of Starr's half-brother. Their feud with a rival gang makes even a park or a party dangerous.

In The Hate U Give, what job does Starr's mother hold at a neighborhood clinic before moving to a hospital?

A nurse at the start of the novel, she later lands a better-paid hospital post that lets the family afford a house in a safer area.

In The Hate U Give, what name does Starr give the officer who shot Khalil, taken from his badge number?

One-Fifteen is the only name Starr uses for him through most of the novel, though the wider world learns he is Brian Cruise Jr. His father defends him in a sympathetic TV interview.

In The Hate U Give, a friend unfollows Starr's blog after she posts a photo of which 1955 lynching victim?

Emmett Till was 14 when he was abducted and lynched in Mississippi, and his killers were acquitted. Starr later learns the friend simply did not want such posts in her feed.

In The Hate U Give, where does Starr anonymously share photos and memories under the name The Khalil I Know?

Tumblr lets Starr post childhood photos and small facts about her friend while the news calls him a suspected drug dealer. It is her first step toward speaking in public.

In The Hate U Give, which sport does Starr play on a school team and with her half-brother once a month?

Basketball is also where her oldest school friend taunts her about fried chicken during a gym class game, a remark Starr calls out as racist.

In The Hate U Give, what does the local gang leader lay on Khalil's body at the funeral?

A gray bandana would mark Khalil as one of the gang, and his grandmother throws it straight back. Starr later learns he had refused to join, so the gesture was only to save face.

At the final protest in The Hate U Give, what does Starr throw toward the police line?

A can of tear gas is thrown at her as she stands on a patrol car, moments after she leads the crowd in a chant. A photo of her throw makes the next day's front page.

At the end of The Hate U Give, the retiring Mr. Lewis gives Starr's father which premises to expand into?

His barbershop stood next door, and Mr. Lewis had spent the novel grumbling at his neighbor. He hands it over so that a bigger store can keep doing good in the neighborhood.

In The Hate U Give, why is Starr's detective uncle placed on leave from the police force?

He punched the shooter, his own colleague, on learning the man had pointed a gun at Starr. The officer's father complains about the attack in a television interview.

In The Hate U Give, Starr learns that Khalil had been selling drugs for which reason?

To repay his mother's debt, Khalil worked for the very dealer she had stolen from. He had turned down the gang itself, even as news reports painted him as a member.

In The Hate U Give, Starr's father makes his children recite the Ten-Point Program of which movement?

The Black Panthers shape how he argues: when Starr hesitates to testify, he answers with their ideas and those of Malcolm X. An older neighbor argues for nonviolent protest instead.

Whose 2009 shooting on an Oakland train platform moved Angie Thomas to begin The Hate U Give?

Oscar Grant was killed by a transit police officer on New Year's Day, and Thomas answered with a story for her college senior project. Later deaths pulled her back to turn it into a novel.

At which Mississippi college did Angie Thomas begin The Hate U Give as a creative writing senior project?

Belhaven University is where a professor told Thomas that her experiences could give a voice to people who had been silenced. She set the draft aside for years after graduating.

The Hate U Give author Angie Thomas grew up near the home of Medgar Evers in which Mississippi city?

Jackson is where Thomas, at six, saw a shootout between gangs. The next day her mother took her to the library to show her there was more to the world, and that visit inspired her to write.

Balzer + Bray, the imprint that won an auction for The Hate U Give, belongs to which publisher?

HarperCollins beat 13 rival publishing houses through that imprint in February 2016 and signed Thomas to a two-book deal. The film rights were optioned the following month.

Which library association prize for a first-time author writing for teens did The Hate U Give win?

The Morris Award honors a debut book for young adults, and Thomas took it in the same season that her novel was named a Printz Honor book.

The Hate U Give became one of America's most challenged books partly because critics said it promoted what?

An anti-police message was one complaint; profanity and drug use were others. A South Carolina police union even objected to the novel's place on a high school summer reading list.

Which 2021 prequel to The Hate U Give tells the earlier story of Starr's father?

Concrete Rose grew out of young readers telling Angie Thomas that he was the best father they had seen. Talks with the actor who played him on screen sparked the idea.

Which novel about a teenage rapper named Bri shares its neighborhood setting with The Hate U Give?

On the Come Up was Angie Thomas's second novel, published in 2019 and filmed in 2022. Its heroine hopes to match her late father, an underground rap legend murdered before he broke through.

Which narrator, also heard on The Help, won an Audie Award for the audiobook of The Hate U Give?

Bahni Turpin was chosen for the job by Angie Thomas herself. The recording also won the Odyssey Award, given to the year's best audiobook for children or young adults.

Which narrative point of view does Angie Thomas use throughout The Hate U Give, a choice praised by Booklist?

First person keeps every scene inside Starr's head, so readers hear both the slang she uses at home and the careful voice she saves for school.

Which director of Soul Food and Men of Honor made the 2018 film of The Hate U Give?

George Tillman Jr. also directed Notorious, the biopic of rapper The Notorious B.I.G. He signed on within weeks of the book deal, almost a year before the novel was published.

Which Marvel actor plays the feared gang leader in the 2018 film The Hate U Give?

Anthony Mackie, Marvel's Falcon, joined the cast on the very day shooting began in September 2017. His character firebombs the store owned by Starr's father and ends the film in jail.

Which co-creator and star of HBO's Insecure plays activist lawyer April Ofrah in the film The Hate U Give?

Issa Rae plays the campaigner who urges Starr to speak out in public. She was cast in August 2017, about three weeks before the cameras rolled.

Which star of the Scary Movie films plays Starr's mother in the 2018 film The Hate U Give?

Regina Hall joined the cast in August 2017. A year later she became the first African-American to win the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, for a different film.

Which screenwriter of Under the Tuscan Sun adapted The Hate U Give and died a day before the film's release?

Audrey Wells had been living with cancer since 2013 and kept writing through it. An animated film she scripted, Over the Moon, came out two years later and was dedicated to her memory.

In which Southern city was the 2018 film The Hate U Give shot in the fall of 2017?

Atlanta hosted the shoot from September to early November 2017. More filming followed the next April, after one of the main roles had to be recast.

In the novel The Hate U Give, why does the officer say he pulled over Khalil's car?

A broken taillight is the reason in the book, while the film changes it to a failure to signal a lane change. Either way, a routine stop turns deadly within minutes.

In The Hate U Give, what kind of car does Starr's boyfriend hire to take the couple to prom?

A Rolls-Royce becomes the place where the pair finally talk honestly, after he reveals he recognized her voice in a TV interview. They declare their love for the first time that night.

After Starr's television interview in The Hate U Give, what does an anonymous donor offer to pay for?

Her college tuition is the offer, made after the broadcast becomes one of the most-watched interviews in the network's history. Death threats arrive alongside the praise.

In The Hate U Give, how did Starr's father get out of his gang?

He went to prison for its leader, taking the blame when police caught the two of them together. Three years inside cost him part of Starr's childhood, a gap her uncle filled.