Consistent – DaneCobain.com

Title: The Hate U Give

Author: Angie Thomas

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 448

Rating: 4.5*/5

Angie Thomas – The Hate U Give

I was a little bit worried about picking this one up because there’s been a lot of hype around its release and I knew before going in that it dealt with a policeman shooting an unarmed black dude. I worried that if it wasn’t well-executed, the whole thing would just feel off somehow. But I needn’t have worried.

True, I did have occasional problems with the book, but it was mostly just where stuff didn’t relate too well to what things are like here in the UK. Even the way that the characters talked is so different to how people talk here in the UK, but at the same time it was consistent with itself, if that makes sense. I might not have heard some of the slang, but it definitely felt like the dialogue was realistic and true to the characters.

I was also worried to begin with that because Khalil is killed so early in the book that there was a risk we wouldn’t ever get to know him. Luckily, Thomas thought of that and made sure that we continue to learn more about him after his death, and that actually reflects what generally happens when a cop kills someone. Considering it’s such sensitive material, it’s really, really well handled.

Angie Thomas

Honestly, I can see The Hate U Give going on to be considered a contemporary classic, and while I did have a couple of problems with it here and there, there was nothing that I’d consider a deal-breaker. It took me a little while to get used to the dialogue, but the same thing happens when I read an Irvine Welsh book. And after the first fifty or sixty pages, it became hard to put it down, even though strictly speaking not a great deal actually happens. Or more accurately, the biggest thing to happen is what happens right at the start of the book, and they spend the rest of the book coming to terms with it. It’s a pretty powerful way to tell a story.

All in all then, there’s not much that I can say here that hasn’t already been said somewhere else. I also see a lot of people saying that because they’re not black, they’re less qualified to share an opinion as to the accuracy of its depictions of race and culture. I’m not sure if that’s true, because I think that being from a different culture to the one portrayed made me appreciate it even more. Ultimately, it made me want to be a good person. Excellent.

Angie Thomas Quote

Click here to buy The Hate U Give.

Hugh Laurie – The Gun Seller | Review

Title: The Gun Seller

Author: Hugh Laurie

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 342

Rating: 4*/5

Hugh Laurie – The Gun Seller

Hugh Laurie is a man of many talents. He was fantastic as one half of Fry and Laurie, and I learned how to play a bunch of his comedy songs on guitar. He was great as Dr. House, although I was a little late to the game on that one. And it turns out that he’s also a decent author, as this book attests to.

It’s basically a cross between a comedy novel and a tale of espionage, reminiscent of Graham Greene at times. Laurie is a pretty good writer, although some parts of it were duller than others, and it’s mainly the dialogue and the interplay between characters that makes it stand out. He’s also paid a lot of attention to the plot, and it often feels as though every detail has been accounted for.

The main problem that I had with it was that I thought it should have ended about two thirds of the way into it. The ending was needed for the rest of the book to work, but it wasn’t particularly well executed and I thought it could have done with a little more work. I found my attention drifting as I neared the end, and I spent the last thirty pages thinking vaguely about what I was planning on reading next.

Overall, though, it was still an impressive little novel, and it’s a shame that it’s the only one that Laurie has released – to my knowledge, at least. It’s the kind of book that you could take on holiday and read on the beach or simply dip in and out of on the commute, especially because the story line remains fairly consistent throughout so it doesn’t matter too much if you forget what was happening and then come back to it. And if you took the covers off and tested it against contemporary thrillers from famous authors, I’m pretty sure it could hold its own.