hush Themes

hush deals with a lot of issues, but if we really look closely, Toswiah/Evie's character's internal journey is about figuring out who she is. As an adolescent, Toswiah/Evie would be asking herself...

Principles are great to have—but they can also make your life really uncomfortable sometimes, especially if those around you don't share them. In hush, Daddy's principles, his beliefs in what's r...

Our friends are super important to us. We can't imagine disappearing and losing those relationships, and we know it would have been especially hard in junior high and high school, which is how old...

Toswiah/Evie's family isn't huge to begin with in hush—the only extended family member who's still alive appears to be Grandma—and it shrinks even further when the Green family is relocated. No...

Along with identity, race is one of the biggest themes in hush. The initiating event (the thing that causes all the conflict) is the fact that Daddy sees two white cops shoot an unarmed black teena...

We encounter religion in hush mainly through Mama, who becomes a Jehovah's Witness on the day the family is forced to leave Denver. Although no one in the family has been religious before, Mama emb...

Toswiah/Evie and her family literally can't go home again in hush. Not to Denver, anyway, because Denver, the place Toswiah/Evie grew up and feels safe and secure and loved, isn't a safe place afte...

As if even hearing about a kid around your age getting shot by the police weren't scary enough, in hush Toswiah/Evie has to deal with the fact that her dad saw it happen, she knows the cops who did...