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The Hate U Give audiobook vs book: which should you choose?

Starr tells the story in the first person, and the question is what she will say. The solo recording won the American Library Association’s top prize for a young people’s audiobook. Nothing in the printed book points the other way.

Read vs Listen·Verdict last reviewed 23 October 2026·6 min read

Short answer: for The Hate U Give audiobook vs book choice, we say listen on Audible (100% confidence, clear cut). Bahni Turpin reads the only English recording, HarperCollins’s 2017 edition, unabridged: 11 hours 39 minutes on Audible UK and 11h 50m on Audible US. One narrator, an award-winning performance praised for its dialect and a long print edition all point to audio, and nothing points to print.

Confidence 100%, which puts it in the clear cut band. Bands run from close call at 50 to 64, through leaning at 65 to 79 and clear at 80 to 94, up to clear cut at 95 and above.

What this book actually is

The Hate U Give is Angie Thomas’s first novel, published by Balzer + Bray in the US on 28 February 2017 and by Walker Books in the UK on 6 April 2017. It was a number one New York Times bestseller, won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year in 2018, took the William C. Morris Award in the US and was longlisted for the National Book Award. The title draws on Tupac Shakur’s “THUG LIFE” acronym. A film directed by George Tillman Jr. With Amandla Stenberg as Starr, came out in October 2018.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she lives, Garden Heights, and the wealthy, mostly white private school she attends. She witnesses the fatal police shooting of her unarmed childhood best friend, Khalil, and what she says about it could destroy her community or get her killed. Publishers describe it as inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Kirkus rates it for ages 14 and up. It is book 2 in Audible’s Garden Heights numbering, after the prequel Concrete Rose, but it was published first.

The case for reading it

There is not much of a case, and our checks did not find one. There are no time jumps, no invented names and no documents or illustrations. There is one narrator, and no critic praises the prose for its own sake. The book appeared on the American Library Association’s most-challenged lists in 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021, which is a note on its subject matter, not its format.

The one practical reason to read it is the dialect. Starr code-switches between home and school, and Wikipedia says that shows in the slang of each setting’s dialogue. In print, a reader can take that at their own pace. Against that, School Library Journal says Turpin “perfectly captures dialect, cadence, and slang”, so the recording is praised for exactly this. The publisher lists the Walker Books paperback at 448 pages, though some retailers say 400; Kirkus puts the print reading age at 14 and up.

The case for listening to it

Bahni Turpin’s recording won the 2018 Odyssey Award, the American Library Association’s annual prize for the best audiobook produced for children or young adults, confirmed on the ALA’s own list. The honour recordings behind it were read by Michael Sheen, Stephen Fry, Jason Reynolds, Dion Graham and David Tennant. Kirkus’s audiobook review says Turpin’s “portrayals of all the characters are rich and deep” and her narration of the shooting scene is “poignant and horrific”; the Lancashire Post, quoted on Audible UK, says the narration “brings this powerful YA novel vividly to life”.

The book suits one narrator. Starr tells it in the first person, it centres on a single question, and the cast is her family and friends. Audible UK listeners rate it 4.7 and Audible US listeners 4.8 from nearly 46,000 ratings, as of October 2026. An Audible editor on the US page says Turpin “gives voice to such a broad and rich cast of characters”.

Get the audiobook11h 39m, read by Bahni Turpin

Listen on Audible

The audiobook in detail

There is one English recording, read by Bahni Turpin for HarperCollins (HarperAudio in the US). Audible UK sells it through W. F. Howes at 11 hours 39 minutes, released on that store on 7 February 2019; Audible US sells it at 11 hours 50 minutes, released 28 February 2017, the same day as the print edition. Both carry the 2017 HarperCollins copyright line, and no page explains the 11-minute gap. The UK listing is scored. At 1.5x it takes 7 hours 46 minutes, at 2x about 5 hours 50 minutes.

Turpin also reads On the Come Up, the third Garden Heights book (11h 41m); Dion Graham reads the prequel Concrete Rose (8h 16m). Wikipedia also credits the recording with Audie Awards for Best Female Narrator and Young Adult in 2018, but those could not be confirmed on a primary page, so only the Odyssey is counted here.

Who should ignore this verdict

Anyone reading it for a class, where page numbers and quotations matter, should have the print or Kindle edition to hand. Anyone who prefers to read dialect at their own pace in print has a reason too. Otherwise this is one of the clearer listen verdicts on the site, and the awards for the recording show why.

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