Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas has published 11 books across 6 series. The recommended reading order starts with Hope Nation (2018).
Angie Thomas is an American author who writes young adult fiction and made her debut with The Hate U Give, a novel that won the William C. Morris Award and swept readers into a national conversation. The book landed in a thirteen-house auction before Balzer + Bray acquired it, and Fox 2000 optioned the film rights with director George Tillman and actress Amandla Stenberg attached. The adaptation became a major motion picture that also starred Algee Smith and KJ Apa.
Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, where she still lives, Thomas earned her BFA in Creative Writing from Belhaven University. Before novels, she had a brief career as a teen rapper, an experience that earned her a feature in Right-On Magazine, photograph included. That background in hip hop runs through her work and her sensibility. In 2015, she became an inaugural winner of the Walter Dean Myers Grant, awarded by We Need Diverse Books. The Hate U Give also took home a Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best honor, cementing her place as a writer whose stories reach readers far beyond the page.
Shelf & Shadows
Order of Anthologies
- Tagsyoung-adultDescriptionA teenager sits alone, watching the news cycle spin with violence and injustice, and wonders what action could possibly matter. Hope Nation is a collection of essays and original stories by twenty-three young adult authors who write directly to that question: how to choose hope when the world feels impossible. Each piece speaks to a different face of struggle — oppression, alienation, defeat, the weight of inheriting a broken world. The contributors include Angie Thomas, Jason Reynolds, Nicola Yoon, Libba Bray, Marie Lu, David Levithan, and Nic Stone, among others, and their words are personal, not prescriptive. They acknowledge the pain first. Then they offer what they have learned about finding light in the darkness, about the small decisions that add up to resilience. The book was a 2019 Texas Topaz Reading List selection and a Junior Library Guild selection. It delivers essays and fiction side by side, each one a different answer to the same urgent question: when everything feels powerless, what do you do next? The answer, piece by piece, is that hope is not a feeling that arrives on its own. It is a decision, and the book shows what that decision looks like in practice.Publication date27 February 2018Amazon rating4.7/5Print length288LanguageEnglishPublisherPhilomel Books
- Tagsyoung-adultDescriptionYou Can't Say That is a 2021 collection of interviews with thirteen authors of books for young people whose work has been banned or challenged in America. Historian and critic Leonard S. Marcus sits down with writers whose books have faced accusations ranging from pornography and child abuse to anti-religious sentiment and occult themes. A photo essay on transgender teens draws fire for being anti-family. Picture books about same-sex parents set off protests. Two wildly popular children's series face censorship attempts, one for scatological humor, the other for being too frightening. Books that address race, sex, LGBTQ lives, or coarse language land under scrutiny from those who question whether young readers should have access to them. The interviews explore what it feels like to see your work pulled from shelves, why these books provoke such strong reactions, and how censorship — both overt and quiet — has shaped what these authors write next. Marcus places the challenges in historical context and examines the support networks that have formed to defend young people's right to read. The question threading through every conversation is whether some voices believe they hold the authority to decide what stories others are allowed to encounter, and what happens to literature when fear dictates access.Publication dateSeptember 16, 2021Amazon rating4.6/5Print length240LanguageEnglishPublisherCandlewick
- TagsthrillerDescriptionBreakout is a thriller about five friends from Thurgood Marshall Academy who travel to a private island resort for spring break — and find themselves trapped with a killer. The group has been inseparable since kindergarten, but last year a tragedy tore a hole in their circle. When the new kid, Anthony Brooks, invites them to spend a week at his father's luxury resort off the coast of Florida, they see a chance to forget what happened and move on. Then a tropical storm cuts them off from the mainland. Bodies start appearing. One of them belongs to another member of the group. The secrets the friends tried to leave behind — the lies, the betrayals, the dead best friend from last year — wash back into view, and the island offers no escape. Every truth they buried now threatens to surface, and trust shatters as quickly as hearts collide. The storm traps them with their worst mistakes and with someone willing to kill. The question driving the week is whether any of them will make it off the island alive — and whether it is possible to outrun the worst thing you have ever done.Publication date2 June 2026Amazon rating5/5Print length352LanguageEnglishPublisherQuill Tree Books
Order of Blackout Books
- TagsfantasyDescriptionBlackout is a romantic novel set during a summer heatwave that plunges New York City into darkness. Six interconnected stories follow Black teens as the blackout throws the city into confusion and sparks a different kind of electricity. A first meeting unfolds on a darkened street. Long-time friends see each other in a new light. Bitter exes cross paths when they least expect it. Each couple faces a single sweltering starry night that could change everything. When the lights go out, people reveal hidden truths they have kept carefully hidden. Love blossoms in unexpected places, friendship transforms into something deeper, and new possibilities take flight in the warm dark. The novel weaves together six stories by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon, each exploring what happens when the usual rules fall away and the night offers a chance to become someone new.Publication date22 June 2021Amazon rating4.5/5Print length256LanguageEnglishPublisherQuill Tree Books
- TagsromanceDescriptionStevie is heartbroken after a misunderstanding with her girlfriend Sola, and she knows a simple apology will not be enough. Whiteout follows her plan to orchestrate a grand romantic gesture that will prove she is worth a second chance — but the timing could not be worse. Atlanta is buried under a rare Christmas snowstorm, and the city has ground to a halt. Twelve teens band together to help Stevie pull off the apology of her life, navigating snowdrifts, closed roads, and their own tangled relationships as the clock ticks down. Each of them carries a stake in the outcome, and each friendship and romance among the group shifts as the night unfolds. The storm is relentless, and so is the question: can they reach Sola before the moment is lost? Whiteout, published in 2022 by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon, is a young adult novel set during a snowy Atlanta Christmas. The book follows the authors' earlier collaboration Blackout and weaves together multiple love stories, all of them centered on Black teens and the magical, unpredictable moments that change everything.Publication date8 November 2022Amazon rating4.2/5Print length304LanguageEnglishPublisherQuill Tree Books
Order of Nic Blake and The Remarkables Books
- TagscrimefantasyDescriptionNic Blake is a twelve-year-old Remarkable living in the Unremarkable world, and all she wants is to learn magic from her Manifestor father. The Manifestor Prophecy, first book in the Order of Nic Blake and The Remarkables Books series, is a contemporary fantasy that opens on her twelfth birthday — the day she gets a pet hellhound and the day everything falls apart. Before her father can teach her the gift she craves, shocking revelations upend her world and he is arrested for a crime Nic refuses to believe he committed. Saving him means finding a powerful magic tool she has never heard of, which sends Nic and two friends on a hunt that will test whether a girl forbidden from learning magic can wield enough of it to free the person she loves most.Publication dateApril 4, 2023Amazon rating4.7/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherClarion Books
- TagsfantasysuspensethrillerDescriptionNic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi is a fantasy adventure about a girl who finally has the home and family she always wanted — and a prophecy that could take it all away. After years in hiding, Nic now lives openly as a Remarkable in the hidden city of Uhuru, training her Manifestor Gift and settling into life as a certified hero. Then a mysterious cult arrives with a threat: deliver the legendary Book of Anansi, an artifact no one is certain still exists, or they will reveal that Nic is the Manowari — the destroyer foretold in an ancient prophecy. Nic has no idea where the Book of Anansi might be hidden, and she cannot control the strange new power growing inside her. A vengeful author who once inspired her now wants her destroyed. The cult is closing in, and if the truth about the prophecy gets out, she will lose everything she has spent her life searching for. With only her twin brother Alex and her best friend JP to help her, Nic sets out to uncover one of the Remarkable world's oldest mysteries. The question is whether she can find the artifact in time — or whether the prophecy will find her first.Publication dateSeptember 16, 2025Amazon rating4.8/5Print length477LanguageEnglishPublisherClarion Books
Order of Non-Fiction Books
- Tags---DescriptionFind Your Voice is a guided journal for writers who want to develop a story that feels true to them. Published in 2020, the 192-page book offers step-by-step craft tips, writing prompts, and exercises that walk through the entire process: discovering story ideas, creating characters, realizing setting, shaping the story, and writing a zero draft. Twenty-four illustrated quotes from The Hate U Give and On the Come Up appear throughout, alongside blank pages for the reader's own words. The challenge is not just generating material but trusting what feels real. Each exercise pushes toward work that belongs to the writer alone — no borrowed voice, no safe distance. The prompts ask for specifics: the details that make a character breathe, the setting that anchors a scene, the shape a story needs to take. By the final pages, the question is whether the writer has found what only they can say, and whether they are ready to say it fearlessly.Publication dateMarch 3, 2020Amazon rating4.7/5Print length192LanguageEnglishPublisherClarion Books
Order of Standalone Novels
- Tagsyoung-adultliterary-fictionDescriptionSixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time, or at least win her first battle. On the Come Up is a novel about a girl with massive shoes to fill — her father was an underground hip hop legend who died right before he hit big — and what happens when wanting to make it turns into having to make it. When her mother unexpectedly loses her job, food banks and shut-off notices become part of Bri's life. With bills piling up and an eviction notice staring her family down, Bri no longer raps just for the dream. She needs to save them. She pours her anger and frustration into her first song, and it goes viral for all the wrong reasons. Bri finds herself at the center of a controversy, labeled a hoodlum at school and portrayed by the media as more menace than MC. The public has decided who she is, and that version might be the one that pays. The question she faces is whether survival means becoming the very thing they have made her out to be, and whether freedom of speech is ever really free when you are young and black and desperate enough to need it.Publication dateFebruary 5, 2019Amazon rating4.7/5Print length464LanguageEnglishPublisherClarion Books
Order of The Hate U Give Books
- Tagsyoung-adultcrimethrillerDescriptionStarr Carter witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill Khalil, her unarmed childhood friend, during a traffic stop. The Hate U Give is a young adult novel that follows the sixteen-year-old as she becomes the only person who knows what really happened that night. Starr already moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the elite private school she attends. Now Khalil's death is a national headline. Protesters fill the streets in his name while others call him a thug, a drug dealer, a gangbanger. Cops and the local drug lord both try to intimidate Starr and her family. Everyone wants her answer to one question: what went down that night? Speaking up could upend her community. Staying silent means letting the lies stand. Either choice could endanger her life. The decision Starr makes will force her to navigate not only the violence around her but the cost of her own voice in a country that has already decided what Khalil's death means.Publication dateSeptember 4, 2018Amazon rating4.8/5Print length512LanguageEnglishPublisherClarion Books
- Tagshistorical-fictioncrimemysteryDescriptionConcrete Rose is a novel set in Garden Heights seventeen years before The Hate U Give. Maverick Carter is seventeen, the son of a gang legend, and he knows what a man does: take care of family. With his father in prison and his mother working two jobs, Mav deals for the King Lords to keep money coming in. He has a girlfriend, a cousin who has his back, and everything under control. Then he finds out he is a father. Seven is a baby who depends on him for everything, and suddenly Mav is trying to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child all at once. When someone offers him a chance to go straight, he takes it — a way to prove he can be different in a world that expects him to amount to nothing. But King Lord blood does not wash out. Loyalty binds him, and after the brutal murder of someone close to him, revenge pulls him back toward the gang. Responsibility to his son points one direction; the only family Mav has ever known pulls the other. He will have to decide for himself what it means to be a man — and whether that answer exists in a place designed for him to fail.Publication dateJanuary 12, 2021Amazon rating4.8/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherClarion Books
Frequently Asked Questions about Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas's books are best read in the order they were published, as some series build upon each other or follow character arcs. For a complete reading experience, start with The Hate U Give (2018), followed by its prequel Concrete Rose (2021). Then, consider On the Come Up (2019). Her Blackout series includes Blackout (2021) and Whiteout (2022). The Nic Blake and The Remarkables series begins with The Manifestor Prophecy (2023) and continues with Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi (2025). Other works like Hope Nation (2018), You Can't Say That (2021), Breakout (2026), and Find Your Voice (2020) can be read independently.
A good starting point for Angie Thomas's books is The Hate U Give, published in 2018. This novel introduces readers to Starr Carter and her experiences, setting a strong foundation for understanding her storytelling. Following this, Concrete Rose, a prequel set in the past, offers more context for characters and their world. On the Come Up, a standalone novel, is another excellent entry point that explores different themes and characters within a similar realistic fiction style. These books provide a solid introduction to her work.
While some of Angie Thomas's books are part of series and benefit from sequential reading, others can be read as standalones. The Hate U Give series, consisting of The Hate U Give and Concrete Rose, is best experienced in publication order to follow the narrative chronologically. Similarly, the Blackout series and the Nic Blake and The Remarkables series are intended to be read in order. However, On the Come Up and her contributions to anthologies like Hope Nation can be read independently without prior knowledge of her other works.
Angie Thomas writes both standalone novels and books that are part of series. Her work includes standalone titles such as On the Come Up. She also writes series, such as The Hate U Give series, which features The Hate U Give and Concrete Rose. Additionally, she is the author of the Blackout series, comprising Blackout and Whiteout, and the Nic Blake and The Remarkables series, which includes The Manifestor Prophecy and Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi. Her contributions to anthologies also mean she has written individual stories.
Angie Thomas has written a total of ten books across her various series and standalone novels, with one more scheduled for release. Her published works include The Hate U Give (2018), On the Come Up (2019), Concrete Rose (2021), Blackout (2021), Whiteout (2022), The Manifestor Prophecy (2023), and Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi (2025). She has also contributed to anthologies such as Hope Nation (2018) and You Can't Say That (2021). Breakout is scheduled for 2026. She also wrote the non-fiction book Find Your Voice (2020).
The first book Angie Thomas wrote and published was The Hate U Give, released in 2018. This novel marked her debut and introduced her distinct voice and focus on contemporary issues relevant to young readers. It quickly gained significant attention for its powerful narrative and authentic portrayal of its characters and their experiences. Following this success, she continued to build upon her career with subsequent novels and series.
Angie Thomas's most recent book is Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi, which was published in 2025. This title continues the adventures of the Nic Blake and The Remarkables series. Prior to this, she released Whiteout in 2022, a sequel to Blackout. Her forthcoming novel, Breakout, is scheduled for publication in 2026, indicating continued activity in her writing career.
Angie Thomas primarily writes realistic fiction, often focusing on young adult themes. Her novels frequently explore issues of social justice, identity, race, and the challenges faced by teenagers navigating complex societal landscapes. The Hate U Give series, for example, deals with police brutality and activism. On the Come Up centers on a young rapper's journey. The Nic Blake and The Remarkables series, however, ventures into fantasy. Her non-fiction book, Find Your Voice, offers guidance on writing.
We verified the reading order for Angie Thomas's books by cross-referencing official publication dates, ISBN databases, and publisher catalogs.
Last verified: July 2026
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