February was a slow reading month for me but I thoroughly enjoyed everything that I read 🙂

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

“Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.”

What a book. Honestly, I don’t know how to put into words how important and real this book is. Obviously, police brutality has existed for a long time, but I think it’s even more frustrating today because, you have all this proof, pictures, videos, audio recordings and still, somehow justice is hardly ever served. And, I think Angie Thomas does such a great job of capturing the fear, confusion, frustration and anger that comes along with trying to accept or even comprehend that this is our reality.

Talking about racism is never easy. It’s a difficult and uncomfortable conversation to have. And Starr struggles with this. Despite living in the “ghetto”, she attends school, on the other side of town, where over 95% of the student population is white. So, as a young black girl, she really struggles with figuring out who she is or who she’s supposed to be; how she’s supposed to act around certain people, how she’s perceived by others, how to confront or call-out friends on their ignorance, how to react to said ignorance. This book really touched on A LOT.

Lastly, I LOVED that despite the seriousness of the situation in this book, I found myself laughing SO many times. Starr’s family is just hilarious! Literally you could go from crying on one page to laughing on the next.

Everyone should read this book!

 

I Wrote This For You by Ian. S. Thomas

My rating: 4/5 stars

Just when I was starting to think all modern poetry was repetitive and mediocre, this gem comes along and changes everything. Absolutely beautiful from start to finish.

 

Titans Vol 2: Made in Manhattan by Dan Abnett

My rating: 4/5 stars

This volume was a whole lot of fun and perfectly captured why the Titans are one of the strongest teams in the DC universe. Some great highlights:

Wally and Superman’s interaction

Titans and the Justice League working together

Barry & Wally’s interactions (honestly, just the cutest)

Oh &  Wondergirl is pretty bad ass.