Where to Start with Angie Thomas: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Angie Thomas — whether to begin with The Hate U Give, On the Come Up, or Concrete Rose. A complete reading guide to the YA author.
Angie Thomas (born 1988) is the American young adult novelist whose debut The Hate U Give (2017) — inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the shooting of Oscar Grant — became one of the most commercially successful and most culturally significant YA debuts in publishing history, spending over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and being adapted into a 2018 film. Thomas grew up in Jackson, Mississippi; her fiction is set in a fictional neighbourhood called Garden Heights that draws on her personal experience of poverty, police presence, and the specific pressures on Black teenagers in America. Her work is characterised by warmth, humour, and a moral directness that makes difficult subjects accessible without oversimplifying them.
Where to Start: The Hate U Give (2017)
The essential Thomas — and one of the most important YA novels of the decade. Starr Carter lives between two worlds: Garden Heights, the poor Black neighbourhood where her family lives, and Williamson Prep, the predominantly white school her parents send her to for a better education. She works constantly to code-switch between the two, never fully belonging to either.
One night, Starr is in a car with her childhood friend Khalil when a police officer pulls them over. The stop escalates. Khalil is shot dead. Starr is the only witness.
In the days that follow, as Garden Heights erupts in protest and Khalil’s killing becomes a national news story, Starr must decide whether to speak publicly — knowing that speaking will put her family in danger, that she will be cross-examined by people who want to discredit Khalil, and that her life at Williamson will be permanently changed. She must also deal with the specific grief of watching someone she loved be posthumously defined by the circumstances of his death rather than the fullness of his life.
Thomas writes with extraordinary emotional precision and with real humour — Starr’s family (her father Maverick, her mother Lisa, her uncles and brothers) is warm and funny and fully realised. The political content is direct and specific; Thomas is describing something she understands from the inside, and it shows.
On the Come Up (2019)
Thomas’s second novel — set in the same Garden Heights neighbourhood and following Bri Jackson, whose father was a legendary rapper who was murdered before she was old enough to know him. Bri dreams of following in his footsteps; when her first freestyle goes viral for the wrong reasons, the novel examines how Black women are stereotyped in hip-hop and how artistic ambition survives commercial pressure. Warmer and more music-focused than The Hate U Give; a strong standalone.
Concrete Rose (2021)
A prequel — following Maverick Carter (Starr’s father) as a seventeen-year-old navigating fatherhood, gang membership, and family obligation in Garden Heights. The emotional weight of the novel depends on knowing The Hate U Give (we know what Maverick’s son will witness; the novel shows us what shaped the father who tried to prepare her for that world). Best read after The Hate U Give.
Reading Angie Thomas
Begin with The Hate U Give — it is Thomas’s most fully realised novel and the book through which everything else she has written is best understood. Read On the Come Up as a standalone for a lighter tonal complement; read Concrete Rose after The Hate U Give for the prequel’s full emotional resonance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with Angie Thomas?
The Hate U Give (2017) is the essential starting point — Thomas's debut novel about Starr Carter, a sixteen-year-old who witnesses the fatal police shooting of her unarmed childhood friend Khalil and must decide whether to speak out publicly. The novel spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list, became a film starring Amandla Stenberg, and is considered one of the most important YA novels of the decade for its direct, compassionate, and precisely observed engagement with police violence and racial justice. On the Come Up is the gentler alternative.
What is On the Come Up about?
On the Come Up (2019) follows Bri, a sixteen-year-old in Garden Heights (the same fictional neighbourhood as The Hate U Give) who dreams of becoming a famous rapper like her late father. When her first freestyle goes viral for the wrong reasons, she must navigate industry exploitation, racial stereotyping, and the specific pressures on young Black women in hip-hop. Less focused on police violence than The Hate U Give and more on artistic ambition and the music industry; warmer and somewhat lighter in tone.
What is Concrete Rose about?
Concrete Rose (2021) is a prequel to The Hate U Give, following seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter (Starr's father) as he discovers he is about to become a father himself, while navigating gang membership, poverty, and family obligation. The novel provides the backstory for the Carter family introduced in The Hate U Give; it is best read after that novel, as the emotional resonance depends on knowing what Maverick's son Starr will witness twenty years later.
Is The Hate U Give suitable for adult readers?
The Hate U Give is officially YA but is widely read by adults and has been extensively taught in high schools, universities, and community reading groups. The subject matter — police brutality, racial justice, the specific pressures on Black teenagers in America — is not exclusively relevant to young readers, and Thomas writes with a clarity and emotional force that makes the novel powerful regardless of age. The fictional setting of Garden Heights is closely based on Thomas's own experience growing up in Jackson, Mississippi.
