The Hate You give – 10 Reasons why the book’s better than the movie

Hey Happy Bookworms!!

This is my 100th post! Woo! 🎉

Last weekend I went to see The Hate You Give with one of my best friends – Sunshine, who I have mentioned before but now have officially named (For good reason, stay tuned 😈)

She’s still reading my copy of the book because she didn’t finish it in time but I read it a little while ago and am now going to continue with a bit of a sequel to my to all the boys I’ve loved before post.

Obviously spoilers ahead!

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Not in ANY kind of order:

1. Williamson kids have a walkout to protest for Khalil’s death (but for most of them it’s just an excuse to get out of school) and in the book Starr stays at school with – I think Chris, and I’m even less sure Maya but anyway she stays and does her lessons which I think shows her to be a much stronger character than just leaving school, which she does in the movie.
2. Maya doesn’t get ANYTHING special about her in the movie, like in the book her and Starr bond against Hailey because she’s also been racist against Maya as well but in the movie she’s just Starr’s friend.
3. In the book there’s this little sub-plot about Kenya calling Seven her brother instead of their (Starr and Kenya’s) brother and in the end she finally calls him their brother. This was kinda referenced in the movie because Kenya calls him my brother in the beginning to Starr but it’s never actually resolved, which I thought was kinda sad because it would have been so easy to.
4. In the book there’s Starr’s grandma who’s this feisty old women that just adds a bit of comedy to it and yeah, she wasn’t in much of the book but I missed her! Also, Seven has a girlfriend in the book, this isn’t really important but it’s just nice that he has his own story.
5. This is in the movie but I feel like a lot of people missed it because it wasn’t made as big of a point as it should have been, when Iesha tells Starr to take Lyric and Kenya with her when she’s taking Seven (although in the book it’s this character DeVante) she says it’s because they’re bothering her but it’s actually because she knows that when King comes home and finds Seven (or DeVante) missing he’ll take it out on someone, so she’s actually sacrificing herself for her kids which is a really nice moment for her because she constantly choices King over her kids.
6. I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure that Khalil isn’t actually a King Lord in the book because he turns them down and they only try to pretend that he was because they wouldn’t want anyone thinking that he turned them down. It’s a pretty vital bit of information that they changed.
7. The character of DeVante isn’t even in the movie, in the book he’s someone who’s caught up in the King Lords and Maverick and Starr are trying to get him out of that lifestyle and into a better future, you also find out that Maverick was trying to help Khalil get out of drug dealing, it just shows how loads of people are in this situation.
8. Iesha isn’t a good mum. She doesn’t come to Seven’s graduation and she definitely doesn’t stand up and shout for him. I think this is just the movie wanting a happy ending but it’s too happy and not her character, it also makes her sacrificing herself in 5 not as powerful.
9. In the movie, you don’t really see why Carlos is so close to Starr and why Maverick doesn’t like him. In the book you learn that Carlos was like a father to Starr when her dad was in prison and got to see all the first steps and words while Maverick didn’t, I just think that this context explains things and just makes you understand Maverick more. He missed out on seeing his baby girl’s first everything because he was in prison, taking the fall for King so that he could finally be free from gang life. Also, in the book you have this cute thing about how Maverick talks to his roses in the back garden, which is just such a nice and caring thing to do. And I think it says a lot about how gang members (or ex-gang members) aren’t always these crazy cold people.
10. At the end of the book they move out of Garden Heights into a nice house in a safe place because Maverick finally realises that he doesn’t have to live in Garden Height’s to change it for the better, Starr’s mum also gets a better job, and Seven goes away to college. In the movie they stay in Garden Heights, which I disagree with because even though King’s been arrested, it’s still not a safe place to live.

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So yeah! Wow, I wrote a lot more than I did for TATBILB! I think it’s just because I enjoyed this more than TATBILB.

Anyway, bit of a disclaimer-but at the end instead of the beginning: I really enjoyed this movie & thought it was great, and I do know that movies usually have to be different,  this post is simply saying that the book was better.

Have you read/watched The Hate You Give? Did I miss anything that was better in the book than the movie? Do you disagree with any of my points? Did you find anything that was better in the movie than the book?

Bye!

El xox