Starr’s childhood friend, Khalil, is driving her home when they are pulled over by the police for a broken taillight. After patting Khalil down, the white officer tells him to stay put and walks back to the patrol car. Khalil opens the driver’s door and asks Starr if she’s okay. The police officer shoots and kills Khalil. Over the next 13 weeks, Starr struggles with shock, grief, anger, fear, rage, and indecision about whether to testify. Several issues complicate Starr’s thinking: worry about a local gang leader who intimidates through fear and violence; worry about jeopardizing her father, a current business owner and former gang member who changed his life trajectory while in prison; her strained friendship with two friends who aren’t African American at the private school she attends; her mixed feelings about her white boyfriend; her mother’s wish to move the family to a safer neighborhood; and her relationship with her police officer uncle. Starr and the other characters in this novel are vibrant and fully realized; her life and community are multifaceted and complex. It’s in Starr’s loves of Harry Potter, and her complicated feelings about her half-brother’s other sister, who gets more of his time, but has a less stable family life. It’s in the authentic moments of humor, and in the way hope lives side by side with fear and anger in a story that is so much more than its plot and theme. (Age 13 and older)

8 starred reviews · Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best  ·  William C. Morris Award Winner · National Book Award Longlist · Printz Honor Book · Coretta Scott King Honor Book · #1 New York Times Bestseller!

"Absolutely riveting!" —Jason Reynolds

"Stunning." —John Green

"This story is necessary. This story is important." —Kirkus (starred review)

"Heartbreakingly topical." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A marvel of verisimilitude." —Booklist (starred review)

"A powerful, in-your-face novel." —Horn Book (starred review)

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Want more of Garden Heights? Catch Maverick and Seven’s story in Concrete Rose, Angie Thomas's powerful prequel to The Hate U Give.