Hi, I'm Angie Thomas and I'm the author of The Hate U Give, On the Come Up and
Concrete Rose.
And today I'm going to attempt to break down the Garden Heights universe for
you all.
Now first off, Garden Heights was inspired by the neighborhood that I grew up in,
in Jackson, Mississippi, called Georgetown.
And while there are some differences, there are a lot of similarities.
While Georgetown is a neighborhood that is known for all the wrong reasons,
it's still a neighborhood full of love and people who care about one another.
I wouldn't be who I am if it weren't for my neighborhood, and I can honestly say
that my characters wouldn't be who they are if it weren't for Garden Heights.
So now let me attempt to break down the connections between all three books.
And I'm gonna start in chronological order.
So first we have Concrete Rose.
Concrete Rose follows the story of Maverick Carter.
Now that name may be
familiar to you all.
Maverick is known in the Hate You Give as being Starr's dad, but in Concrete
Rose, he's a 17 year old kid who's still trying to figure things out.
Maverick and his girlfriend Lisa, later on as teenagers, become the parents of Starr.
But before they become the parents of Starr, Maverick and
a girl by the name of Iesha, welcome a baby boy, Seven, into the world.
And the birth of Seven, for Maverick at 17 years old, truly changes his life.
But the whole situation with Seven and Iesha and
Maverick is a little complicated,
because technically Iesha is the girlfriend of Maverick's best friend King.
Now King and Iesha later on will have a daughter by the name of Kenya.
And Kenya and Starr become best friends.
So yeah, the whole thing is messy.
Seven, our little boy Seven, he ended up having sisters who are best friends, but
everybody has so much love for one another despite things being complicated.
So, in Concrete Rose, Maverick lives next door to a gentleman by the name of Mr.
Wyatt and Mr. Wyatt owns a grocery store.
That grocery store later becomes Carter's grocery store in the Hate You Give.
But as a 17-year-old kid, Maverick works there to earn money to help his mom and
to take care of his son.
Now we see a scene in Concrete Rose where a woman by the name of Mrs.
Jackson comes into Mr. Wyatt's store.
That Mrs. Jackson happens to be the grandmother of Bri Jackson,
the main character of On The Come Up.
I hope you're keeping up because there's a lot of connections here.
Now another connection to Concrete Rose and On The Come Up is a scene in which
Maverick and his cousin Dre are sitting in the car and
they're hanging out and they're listening to music.
And they happen to be listening to new music by a neighborhood rapper by the name
of Lawless.
Now if you've read On The Come Up,
the name is familiar because Lawless is Bri's dad.
At the time in On The Come Up he's deceased, but
he's still a neighborhood legend who's known for making these amazing songs and
for making a name for himself in the world before his untimely demise.
And in Concrete Rose, he's still alive and he's thriving and
he's on the come up, pun intended.
[LAUGH] Maverick ends up in a confrontation because of a situation
regarding his cousin, Dre, who is his best friend.
He ends up in a confrontation with a neighborhood hustler by the name of Red.
Now Red is an interesting guy, he's a little sneaky, you can't really trust him,
I'd say if this was Dora the Explorer he'd be Swiper.
[LAUGH] But Red, we find out, has a girlfriend named Brenda, and
Red and Brenda together have a son by the name of Khalil.
And in Concrete Rose, we get to see this little baby Khalil, who we also later know
to be the young man at the center of the story in The Hate U Give,
who loses his life at the hands of police brutality.
It was important for me to show my readers Khalil as a baby.
Because despite the fact that he loses his life so unexpectedly, and
because his life is so short, I still wanted them to see him as this little baby
with all the potential and promise in the world.
Now, Brenda has a sister by the name of Tammy, and Tammy's best friend is Lisa.
So that's how those two families end up connecting.
Now Lisa and her mother attend a church,
that's also the same church that the family of Bri in On The Come Up attends.
So those families are also connected through that as well.
Now one more connection that I have to point out.
And some readers have noticed this but a lot of people have not,
is that at the end of The Hate U Give, there's a scene where Starr, Seven,
and Devante and Chris are all picked up by one of these neighborhood gangsters
by the name of Goon.
And there's a young lady in the back of the pickup truck named Bri.
And at the time she's Goon's niece.
Well, technically that was going to be Bri in On The Come Up but
I ended up changing some things.
So if you look at the name Goon and then you look at the name Pooh which turns out
to be Bri's aunt in On The Come Up, you may see where I changed it up.
But that was originally going to be Bri, but
Bri does not make an appearance officially in The Hate U Give.
So that's like a scrapped version of Bri.
We're gonna say there's more than one Bri in the neighborhood cuz there's more than
one Bri in the world.
So there you go.
All right, now, in On The Come Up, Bri does make a trip to Maverick's store.
And we'd get to see a little bit of that or
at least she mentions going to Maverick's store.
So that was my way of connecting that to The Hate U Give.
Now, I'm gonna expand this universe a little bit more,
we gotta do it kinda Marvel style and expand it.
I hope you're keeping up.
So in Concrete Rose, Maverick and Lisa take a trip and
they go on a college tour visit.
And they go to this college and they get taken around by a young mother,
and that young mother's name is Deja, and Deja tell them she
has a baby boy named Justyce, Justyce McAllister in fact.
Now if you've read Dear Martin by Nick Stone or Dear Justyce by Nick Stone,
that name may be familiar.
Yes, that's Justyce McAllister from Dear Martin, and
his mother making an appearance in Concrete Rose.
Now, I'm going to expand this universe a little bit more and connect it to yet
another book universe.
Now, if you've read Love Creekwood by my dear friend, Becky Albertalli,
you may have noticed that there's a scene where Starr is mentioned.
For those who don't know, I will explain that to you right now.
So Starr in The Hate U Give is the cousin of Bram in
Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda.
Their moms are cousins.
So, Becky and I decided to make that connection and
she took it even further and made it into Canon by putting it in Love Creekwood.
So we've always said it's Canon, but I'm telling you right now,
confirming right now, yes, the Starr that's mentioned in Love Creekwood
is Starr Carter from The Hate U Give.
So in a lot of ways, the Simon-verse and the Garden Heights-verse,
they're connected as well.
And you never know what kind of connections I got coming up next, so
keep being awesome, keep reading and I'm gonna keep writing for
every single one of you, bye.