The bestselling YA author talks to EW about the prequel to 2017’s The Hate U Give.
Angie Thomas somehow predicted just what 2021 was going to need.
And yes, there are Easter eggs.
Credit: Illustration by EW
My favorite character fromThe Hate U Givewas actually Maverick.
But he blew me away and hewasMaverick, full-stop.
It only felt right to answer everything in book form.
Imani Khayyam
When I was on tour forOn the Come UpI was kind of hinting at this book during events.
Like, I love you, but no.
And it’s also the point where he started to figure out who he is.
When we meet Maverick inThe Hate U Give,he knows himself.
He’s very sure of where he stands on issues and what he believes.
The idea that at some point, he had no clue is fascinating to me.
I’m in my 30s, and I’m still figuring it out!
That doesn’t mean that I’m a failure; it just means that I’m a millennial.
I also wanted to show him at the most vulnerable time in his life.
We don’t allow young Black boys to have vulnerability enough.
If their mom needed a break, he would load those babies on to his bike.
I thought about him a lot when I was writing this character.
It would be easy to just say, ‘Oh, she’s the irresponsible teenaged mom.’
But no, there are so many things working against her.
So often when teenagers have kids we condemn them instead of giving them the support they need.
What was it like for you to write the young version of Carlos?
But I won’t do that!
I look forward to conversations with readers around Carlos.
Do you have any predictions of other elements of this book that everyone will want to talk about?
I was like, oh, they are going to be mad at me!
I’ve already gotten texts from my writer-friends like, how dare you.
It’s going to be interesting to see how people take it.
