Okay, this book is pretty appropriately hyped. It was good. Like damn good. I was worried it would come off as preachy or condescendingly trying to be educational, but I didn't get those feelings. I listened to the audiobook, which I'm glad I did because I'm not as familiar with African-American Vernacular English (I used google to find this term, someone correct me if it's wrong), so I think it would've sounded very awkward and stilted if I was just reading it to myself.
I'm a white woman from a town where the closest we came to diversity is a few good Mexican restaurants and a refugee program that was hotly protested. I consider myself to be empathetic and open-minded, but there are some issues, like those in this book, that I've never actually been faced with in any meaningful way. That's why I chose to read this book: because it made me uncomfortable, and I needed to understand why. It made me confront some biases and opinions within myself that I didn't want to acknowledge. There were views presented that I still don't fully understand or support, but I think this book is a great starting point for trying to understand issues of race and police brutality.
I started my review as 4 stars but honestly I can't think of any elements I didn't like, so I'm going to bring it up to 5. I really did enjoy the balance between the social issue at hand, with Star's family life and relationships to those around her. Everything affects everything in this book, just as it does in real life.