Anger Is a Gift: A Novel

by Mark Oshiro

Hardcover, 2018

Status

Checked out

Genres

Collection

Children's Circulating

Publication

Tor Teen (2018), 464 pages

Description

Six years ago, Moss Jefferies' father was murdered by an Oakland police officer. Along with losing a parent, the media's vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks. Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals in their own school. New rules. Random locker searches. Constant intimidation and Oakland Police Department stationed in their halls. Despite their youth, the students decide to organize and push back against the administration. When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Starla_Aurora

Anger is a gift is a brilliantly written book about past and most importantly, current events occurring all around America. Too often we who are not actively involved in the situation, rely on the news and media to provide our information. When, too often, we have seen how the news distorts

information. We have learned this in our very own history classes, so why would anyone believe it is not still continuing to this day? Anyway, read this book, despite that it is fiction, there are millions living like this.

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LibraryThing member jen.e.moore

This book has trigger warnings for: police violence, graphic violence, character death (on and off the page), racism, homophobia and transphobia, ableism, and extremely effective depictions of depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

And despite the violence, the brutal realism, and the heartbreak,

this is also a hopeful book, because it's about learning, as the title says, that anger is a gift that allows for action. It took me a while to get into this book - contemporary fiction isn't usually my thing, nor is the sparse writing style - but I was drawn in by Moss and his friends. The characters in this book are excellent, fully fleshed out and realistic both in their diversity and in their struggles. Friends hurt each other, people mean well and screw up, people fight their enemies and their friends and their own minds. Although there's no solid victory here (as the author's note says, it just wouldn't be fair to have one), the fight itself is worthwhile and enough to celebrate.

Anger is a Gift is rough going, but it's an extremely valuable and timely book.

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LibraryThing member electrascaife

Moss is a black, gay teen living in Oakland, California. You don't really need much more than that to guess that life isn't easy for him, but then let's add that his father was murdered by the police, because of which Moss now suffers intense anxiety attacks when confronted with the cops or large

crowds of protesters. And then his school - beat up and and derelict, with old or completely-missing equipment, books falling apart - decides that random locker searches and metal detectors at the doors are a necessity to keep the student body in check. Moss just wants a normal life, to explore his feelings for his new boyfriend, and to learn to feel comfortable in his own skin, but the world he lives in just doesn't seem to make any of that possible. This one is a doozy, folks. Honest and open and brutal, and it should be required reading for every high school kid in this country.

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LibraryThing member SamMusher

What if the dystopia were our actual lives? Welcome to 2019, friends! In the author's note, Oshiro says he originally intended this to be a science fiction trilogy, which explains a lot about the pacing... but honestly, the line between sci-fi dystopian horror and the real actual world of the urban

police state are pretty damn blurred at this point.

This book is painful to read. Without spoiling anything, I think I need to be clear that it ups the ante on The Hate U Give, How It Went Down, and every other YA novel about police violence I've read in the last couple of years. It felt most akin to Little Brother, which the author cites as an influence. It's beautiful, and I think some of my strong 7th and 8th grade readers will connect with it powerfully, but I will want to make sure they have someone to talk with about it when they're done.

One of my favorite things about it is how it reads as a playbook for organizing and activism. Young people see what's going on in the world and are hungry to make a difference, so I'm grateful for books like this and Moxie that provide models.

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LibraryThing member lflareads

Anger is a Gift is a book I have been hearing about for awhile, but then I saw it was a contender for March Book Madness YA, I had to see what the buzz was about! It is up against Dumplin’, which was a good book, also.

The reader is immediately pulled into Moss’s life, which is a teen missing

his father after he is shot by the police. Moss is navigating his new life and trying to keep a low profile, so his panic attacks do not show their ugly face. His school has a school officer, who is less than fair. Although, after an incident at school, he is released from his position.

Moss, his friends, and family are struggling with the inequalities of treatment when random locker searches begin and only certain kids are targeted. The students want to change their school, as a starting place for change within their community. BUT how can they stand up to adults and make them understand without rioting or fueling the fire? Is it possible for a group of high schoolers to create change with peaceful protest?

Excellent YA read! Standing up for yourself and others focused on and important connections between mothers and sons.

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LibraryThing member elenaj

This book moves quickly, and the first half of the book is very readable. I loved the diverse cast of characters. But the second half was incredibly difficult to read. Many awful things happen, and in the end, there is no clear resolution or satisfying redemption. This is lifelike, but it left me

feeling not educated or inspired to act so much as depressed.

It doesn't help that the most brutal technologies the police use in the book are not actual technologies police have and use in the present day (and certainly not in public schools), which takes this from realistic fiction to science fiction, and dilutes its message about contemporary police brutality and the consequences of police presence in public schools.

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LibraryThing member readingbeader

Super inclusive, urban setting.
Anger, so much anger. It's a theme in many of the books I'm reading right now. Very indicative of our society right now.

LibraryThing member arosoff

I don't read a lot of YA, and rarely review it when I do, but a friend specifically recommended this book to me.

The good: the book portrays important social issues with power and immediacy. The portrayal of life in an underfunded school is spot on. (The metal detectors, though. At least he

explained it with the magnetic body scanner, but it still doesn't 100% make sense: they'd put such an expensive piece of equipment in a high school? Even suspending my disbelief that they would not train officers in how to use it. I get that he was trying to work in the militarization of the police, but the way it was squashed in made it feel like he hadn't done enough research on actual implementation. And ICE didn't exist when Esperanza was born.)

The bad: characterization is, for the most part, weak. The novel reads too much like Oshiro decided he wanted to write a Very Important Novel with a Very Diverse Cast. The characters lack individuality. I remember who is black, who is Muslim, who is nonbinary--but I remember very little about them as individuals, just as identities. Only Bits stuck out at all. They fit into slots in his diverse cast. Esperanza exists as a bridge between her parents (white, well off, well meaning individuals) and the diverse teens of color of Moss' world. She serves a function, but isn't enough of a person. Meanwhile, her parents exist as a plot function--the well meaning white people who betray the kids. Mr. Jacobs plays a similar role. The characters aren't afforded moral complexity--instead, the story functions as a morality play with predetermined slots.

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LibraryThing member Carol420

This is the book that my 13-17- year- old LGBTQ+ kids chose for their group read for the month of March. I always read their choice a month ahead to be sure that it's not going to cause any issues with them. Our on-site mental health professional has also read the book and given his okay for this

age group and will discuss the book with them.

Possible Trigger Warnings: Police and other violence, Racism, Homophobia and Transphobia, Extreme depictions of depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.
The story is set in a working-class neighborhood of California, and tells the story of a youth of color, who is diverse in his sexuality and gender, who takes a stand and organizes to challenge the sanctioned violence that the school...with the blessing of the state...thought was a grand idea. California, by no means, is the ONLY state that has taken this stand...it's just the one state that the author was familiar with. Moss Jeffries is a student and a black teen who is still grieving for the loss six years earlier of his father by the trigger of the police. Moss struggles with self-doubt along with anxiety-induced panic attacks, and finds comfort in his new relationship with Javier, a Latinx boy who’s just as sweet as he is bold and outgoing. When the school year begins, the resource officer assaults a friend of Moss; Shawna, claiming he suspected that she had drugs...but the students and some of the teachers know that it’s really about her recent decision to fully embrace her transexual identity and her "drugs" were prescribed by her doctor. The metal detectors that the school administration recently installed had resulted in a tragic injury for their friend who was using a wheelchair. Moss and his circle of friends and students of all races and colors, felt that the administration's attitude about the incident was nothing short of appalling, and organized a peaceful protest in order to try and convince the school to "dismantle the violence" that had reared its ugly head and taken a front row seat. They started with a student walkout. They wanted to demonstrate that there would continue to be resistance, and aggrieved groups would continue to gather in solidarity, until a meaningful solution with student struggles being recognized as real and ending with love and acceptance for everyone...regardless of race, religion, or sexuality. Wanda... Moss's mother offers a line that sums the book up fairly well and what my kids based their pick on for this book to be their monthly group read and discussion. From the Book “Anger is a fragile but special gift. But you have to remember it can become a raging monster so, you gotta grasp on to it, hold it tight and use it carefully as your ammunition. You use those feelings of anger and injustice to get things done...changed...understood, instead of just stewing in it." . This is not the first book on similar topics like this for this author who sums it up by saying, "Anger is a Gift that is hella precious, and a hella dope." - I honestly believe I had more problems with the content in the book that any of my young folks will have...as Marcus... one of the 17-year-olds remarked..."This isn't fiction for some. For some people this is "their normal." I can't speak for other countries, but in the United States of America, this should NOT EVER...BE ANYONE'S "NORMAL".

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