Angie Thomas Books in Order

If you want the book that introduced her to most readers: The Hate U Give
If you want the full Garden Heights arc: Concrete Rose → The Hate U Give → On the Come Up
If you want collaborative teen romance: Blackout → Whiteout
If you want middle grade fantasy: The Manifestor Prophecy → Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi
If you want writing prompts and advice: Find Your Voice

Angie Thomas was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, and she has been making up stories for a long time. On her official site, she says she started by rewriting Dr. Seuss books at age four. As a teenager she also rapped, did a few performances and interviews, and even landed in Right On! Magazine. That mix of books, music, and neighborhood life still runs through her work.

Writing came early, but hip-hop gave it rhythm.

Thomas studied creative writing at Belhaven University. The real turning point came after the 2009 police shooting of Oscar Grant. She has said that anger and hurt pushed her to write a short story about what something like that would look like in her own neighborhood. That piece became a senior project, and later grew into The Hate U Give.

Getting from student writer to published novelist took persistence. Thomas has talked openly about rewriting, querying agents, getting rejected, and trying again. Then she reached out during a Twitter Q and A to ask whether an agent might even want a book like hers. The answer was yes. Not long after, the manuscript went into a thirteen-publisher auction, and her career changed fast.

The Hate U Give made Thomas known to a huge audience, but readers usually connect with it for very human reasons. Starr Carter is funny, scared, observant, and pulled between home in Garden Heights and the prep school she attends. The book asks big questions about police violence and public voice, but it also cares about family dinners, friendships, first love, and what it means to speak when staying quiet might feel safer.

Starr's family is part of why the book hits so hard.

Thomas followed with On the Come Up, another Garden Heights novel, this time about Bri, a teen rapper trying to be heard without being turned into the story other people want to tell about her. Readers who love that book often point to its rap-battle energy, humor, and the way it shows ambition colliding with money trouble and censorship. In Concrete Rose, Thomas goes back a generation and gives Maverick Carter, Starr's father, his own coming-of-age story as a seventeen-year-old who learns he has a son and has to rethink what manhood, loyalty, and responsibility really mean.

Even when the setting changes, her books share a clear throughline. She writes about Black kids and teens who are sharp, vulnerable, messy, and fully alive. She pays attention to neighborhoods, family pressure, class, grief, and the gap between who a young person is and who the world assumes they are. She has also said she sees books as a form of activism, and that shows up in how seriously she takes her readers without ever forgetting humor.

In 2020 she published Find Your Voice, a guided journal built to help young writers get ideas on the page. Then she moved into middle grade fantasy with Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy and Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi, a series shaped by Black history and folklore. It is a smart turn for her, because even in fantasy mode she is still writing about identity, courage, and the search for home.

Thomas now calls Atlanta home. Alongside the books, she has worked as a producer on screen adaptations, and her official bio says that when she is not writing she spends her time being bossed around by her dog, Kobe. It is a small detail, but it feels right. Her work is serious about the world, yet never far from wit, warmth, or everyday life.