Point of View

The novel is told in first person point of view from the perspective of Starr Carter, a sixteen-year-old African American girl who witnesses her friend get shot and killed by a police officer. The use of first person allows the reader a window into the tumultuous mind of a teenager seeking an identity for herself. We see her stress about how she is perceived by her friends and boyfriend, get in trouble with her mom, employ teen slang and lingo, and obsess about her favorite pop culture icons. To an extent, she is an ordinary adolescent, but in certain ways her experience is unique. Starr is torn between two selves. There is the normal Starr who lives in Garden Heights and works at her father's store, and the Starr who goes to private school and must police her language and behavior, lest she give her...