It took me a long time to really get into this book. I picked it up more than a month ago, and I read the first few chapters, and then just couldn't keep going. It made me seriously uncomfortable, and more than a little confused. This is not a complaint, but a tribute to Angie Thomas's skill as a writer. She perfectly translates to the page the sense of alienation of being plunged into another culture without warning or apology. And then when the initial disorientation wears off, Thomas hits you with everything at once. This book is heavy, in the most emotionally intense way.
So when it happened (Khalil was shot) I just didn't want to keep reading because I was already so attached to everyone. By then end of the book that's even more true. I started reading again a few days ago, and once the book got going I couldn't put it down. It made me laugh, it made me wince, it made me want to be friends with these characters (and on a few occasions to smack them as one does a friend who is doing something stupid). In short: the feels. All of the feels.
And on top of that - I would be happy giving this book five stars already - the book makes a point. It's not only well written and entertaining, but it digs into how people react to race (and to some extent gender), and starts to unpack and deconstruct assumptions and ideas of how we interact with these things. This is definitely one of my favourite books this year.