This is an absolutely engrossing story.I don't think I can review it, though. Anger is a Gift is a difficult story to read, but one that needed to be told and heard.This has definitely earned a place on my Books Everyone Should Read in a Lifetime list.

The best way I can describe this book is "Imagine THUG and DEAR MARTIN had a gay baby." (ETA: Actually, I'm going with "Imagine THUG and DEAR MARTIN had a gay baby that was then single-mothered by JULIET TAKES A BREATH.") I think there are more Q/TPoC in this book alone than in all of YA combined (well, excepting CB Lee's awesome SIDEKICK series, maybe), and the fact that that's in a social justice book about police brutality...it's a really nice thing to imagine how many people are going to fee...

Galley provided by publisherRep: gay black mc, gay Latino li, physically disabled side character, wlw side charactersI really need to start a shelf which sorts books into the category of "it's not you, it's me" because this is one of those ones. I figure the best way to get through this review is by listing the good and bad things so, here we go.THE GOOD- The diversity! The cast of characters in this book was fairly diverse, especially in terms of the LGBT community being represented, which was

This book actually made me angry - I was hoping for a thoughtful book about racism and police brutality that treated its diverse cast well. Pity then that it's poorly written, deeply misogynistic, ableist, and has an unpleasant "bury your gays" plot - and yet it wins praise for being woke. It's also a book that very much falls into the "the main character is perfect, all praise him" category, which, granted, is common in YA and may or may not be a problem for the individual reader. Oh, and there...

For a book trying so very, very hard to be an inspirational tale of a gay black man and his assortedly diverse friends fighting against oppression, it is kind of amazing how racist, sexist, and ableist it turned out to be. (view spoiler)[I wouldn't call it particularly homophobic, but between the bury your gays main storyline and the fact that, for all the main cast's careful diversity of orientation and gender, the only relationship among the major character that survives after that is the hete...

This was one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read. Wow.Update 7/9/18:I will probably not be able to put words into any kind of order that does the emotional aspect of this book justice. But I'm going to try. Just know that whatever I say pales in comparison to the masterful story that Mark Oshiro has given us with his debut novel.Anger is a Gift is an incredibly difficult book to get through for numerous reasons. Please be aware going in that it features intense and frequent scenes of poli...

This book broke me...I usually don't cry when I read books, but Oshiro was able to craft a story that took my breath away. I didn't know how I would feel reading this book considering it is closely related to current events; however, there was a new and interesting perspective brought forward in this book. I personally went to a high school where we had metal detectors and a police presence, but I never really thought anything of it. It was my normal. But in reading this book I can see the impli...

4.5 ~ This book made me cry on public transportation.I didn't expect it to be this difficult to read but I'm glad it was.What's this book about?:When the "security control" in Moss' school gets out of hand and violence follows, he, with the help of his friends, his ma and his comunity, get together to start protesting.And damn did it punch me in the gut... Not only was it greatly important to find a book focused on the expression of police brutality on a horrific level, we also got some brillian...

4.5 Stars! I really really loved this book. An absolute must read for fans of stories of teen activists.CW: racism, assault, violence, police brutality, murder/deathAnger Is A Gift features such a diverse cast of characters to the point where I don't believe I can list them all and I am so down for more books with this trait. There are gay characters (own voices!), trans characters, non-binary characters, bisexual/biromantic characters, asexual characters, black characters, Latinx characters (ow...

“But we just wanted to go to school. I'm sixteen. I shouldn't have to beg for that. But we just want to get to class without fearing for our lives.”I wish I had read this book earlier. It could have taught my so many things that I needed to hear and understand years ago. I went into this book only knowing that it was gay and somewhat devastating. It didn't take long for me to realise that this book was both about police violence and the defunding of schools. It's an infuriating book because we l...

I so appreciated the theme of anger as a gift in this novel. In his young-adult debut, Mark Oshiro writes about a group of predominantly queer teens of color experiencing police brutality and systemic discrimination at their local high school. He writes about their pain, solidarity, and resilience in the face of blatant racism and disadvantage. Our main character, Moss, suffers from some form of anxiety in large part due to the murder of his father years ago. I can imagine this novel triggering

This book could have been extremely valuable and I'm so disappointed by it. I really wish I could have given this more stars based on the potential (and what I think was the intent), but I can't. The writing isn't the worst I've ever encountered, but there were moments it was awkward enough that I was ejected completely out of the story. The dialog can be spectacularly wooden and honestly kind of odd. Characters are flat and don't seem to develop further than their respective points of diversity...

What an impactful and important book. This was so hard to read.

me before reading this book: how brutal can this book be I’ll be fine it can’t be that badme, waking up this morning after finishing: sooooo it looks like my eyes are swollen from CRYING SO MUCH

I wish I liked this book more. Students organizing against the school-to-prison pipeline? An unblinking indictment against police violence? Tons of queer and POC characters? Near-crippling social anxiety? And it's written by Mark Oshiro, the guy who writes about books and TV with passionate love and withering scorn? I thought I'd love this.But I really couldn't get past the characters. In a book with so many characters, there is ONE character with both strengths and flaws -- that's Esperanza. (I...

Fucking magnets, how do they work?

This book about systematic oppression and police brutality is hard as hell to read. There is no flinching at violence in this one, and in addition to exploring race, this book explores gender identity and sexuality in myriad ways (including a gay main character, Moss, queer parents of one of his best friends, and a gender nonconforming best friend). Set in Oakland, Oshiro's book shines when it comes not just to highlighting oppression, but also in highlighting the liberal white world that can so...

Anger Is A Gift tries to hold a mirror up the world to show you its ugliness. Racism, classism, hatefulness and good intentions gone awry are the cornerstones supporting the message that police brutality is real and awful. But the mirror is distorted and the message diluted in frequently sloppy writing, an unlikeable protagonist and the characters who exist solely to prop him up or draw his fire. The diversity of its cast is squandered, and while it might try to make you angry at an unjust world...

Incredible! Best book I've read this year so far!The main character is black, gay, fat, and neurodiverse. Side characters are diverse and intersectional in race, sexuality, gender identity, disability, mental illness, and religion.Amaaaaaazing teacher and parental involvement.Potential triggers: Systematic police brutality and murder. Death of loved ones.

This was brilliant. And gutting. I wouldn't expect any less from Mark--I've been a big fan since he was writing about Harry Potter--but it still blew me away. It was a fresh breath of air to read about a cast of mostly people of color, most of whom are queer (including trans, nonbinary, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and asexual characters). This is the diverse, gay dystopian story we always wanted--except the dystopia is present day and already happening.I also appreciated that Anger Is a Gift deals w...