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jephapha's review
4.0
This was great. Philippe has a way with words. Sometimes, that way can be overly verbose. Or outrageous and colorful. Or raw and insightful. And it's all good. I think Ben is a very real person, who is by no means perfect but is real and open and I appreciated this book.
s_smiadak's review
5.0
His insights are not necessarily new but delivered in a concise, witty (at times snarky) manner that had me chuckling through the whole book. This may not be the book for those needing a gentle guiding hand introducing them to racism/privilege or for those who harbor a lot of white guilt though.
cassiesnextchapter's review
4.0
I really enjoyed this book - go pre-order your copy! {Thanks to Harper Perennial for the gifted copy of this book.}
This book of essays centers on loneliness through one man’s journey from Haiti to the US - of always feeling on the outside of people and events, just trying to find the right balance and sense of belonging and purpose. The serious and impassioned sections are tempered with some well-placed snark and humor, often aimed at himself. There are also some really funny tidbits sprinkled throughout (why DID they gender and sexualize the green M&M? And did you know that a group of entitled white ladies is called a “Privilege of Karens”? ha!). Equal parts funny and insightful, impassioned and reflective, this memoir was a joy to read.⠀
⠀
If you enjoyed Born a Crime, You’ll Never Believe What Happened To Lacey, and What Doesn’t Kill You Makes you Blacker, then Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend is for you.
Haven’t read any of those? Then there’s a great list of books to read.
This book of essays centers on loneliness through one man’s journey from Haiti to the US - of always feeling on the outside of people and events, just trying to find the right balance and sense of belonging and purpose. The serious and impassioned sections are tempered with some well-placed snark and humor, often aimed at himself. There are also some really funny tidbits sprinkled throughout (why DID they gender and sexualize the green M&M? And did you know that a group of entitled white ladies is called a “Privilege of Karens”? ha!). Equal parts funny and insightful, impassioned and reflective, this memoir was a joy to read.⠀
⠀
If you enjoyed Born a Crime, You’ll Never Believe What Happened To Lacey, and What Doesn’t Kill You Makes you Blacker, then Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend is for you.
Haven’t read any of those? Then there’s a great list of books to read.
jwinchell's review against another edition
4.0
I got a little lost reading this work of nonfiction that is mostly a memoir. I got lost mostly because of my own life things, which rarely happens, so I feel like my experience with this book is a two-parter and I can’t remember the first part because of the trauma that is sometimes my life. But today I laid down and decided to finish this and I’m so glad I did. I am a huge fan of The Fieldguide to the North American Teenager and love that Philippe won a Morris Award for it, so of course I was going to read this pithy set of incisive essays about Blackness and his experiences as a Haitian-born Canadian writer living in NYC. Weird funny and smart as hell.
smalltownbookmom's review against another edition
5.0
This book is EXCELLENT! Part memoir, part searing social commentary on race relations in America -all told with a humor that packs a serious emotional punch. Ben was born in Haiti, moved to Canada at a young age and grew up in Montreal, then went to Columbia and now lives and writes in NYC. We like to claim him as Canadian but he has very much been a witness to what life is like in America, especially for a dark-skinned Black man. While a LOT of this book is funny pop culture references (he mentions Gossip Girl and Gilmore girls SOOOOO many times lol), as a fellow born in the 80s child, I connected with a lot of the same things. However, he is also justifiably angry at the state of Black lives in America and minces no words in these essays. HIGHLY recommend, especially for fans of Samantha Irby, Emmanuel Acho or R Eric Thomas.
Favorite quotes (there were so many):
"I'm Black, dark skinned-Black if you want to go there, you should SEE that. In America, a race-blind world simply amounts to a white world in which the rest of us are quiet with pursed lips not making a fuss."
"My Blackness was not fake in my mind, but secondary, an aside to the equation, I didn't quite know what to do with it...it was easily disregarded by friends who did not necessarily have the highest regard for cultural Blackness."
"Being a Black boy in Canada had not prepared me for the task of being a Black man in America. It's a boss level I don't have the right weapons for...People don't want to think of themselves as actively unfriending a Black guy for being too angry about the world. I don't want to be alone again, so my politics make way for a polite and functioning sort of social hypocrisy."
"Being Black in America, like most things today, means angry."
Favorite quotes (there were so many):
"I'm Black, dark skinned-Black if you want to go there, you should SEE that. In America, a race-blind world simply amounts to a white world in which the rest of us are quiet with pursed lips not making a fuss."
"My Blackness was not fake in my mind, but secondary, an aside to the equation, I didn't quite know what to do with it...it was easily disregarded by friends who did not necessarily have the highest regard for cultural Blackness."
"Being a Black boy in Canada had not prepared me for the task of being a Black man in America. It's a boss level I don't have the right weapons for...People don't want to think of themselves as actively unfriending a Black guy for being too angry about the world. I don't want to be alone again, so my politics make way for a polite and functioning sort of social hypocrisy."
"Being Black in America, like most things today, means angry."
embermantles's review
1.0
This book's description makes it seem like it will primarily be a political book, but the essays are far more memoir-like with a few political topics thrown in. That on its own isn't what makes this a frustrating read for me.
The author makes quite a few statements of opinion that he knows are fatphobic, he outrights acknowledges it at one point. He claims that he isn't being fatphobic, that he just really didn't like how he himself looked at that time in his life. That might have been a reasonable explanation, if not for all the times in later essays where he makes comments about how gross fat people's bodies are to him.
He makes claims that he doesn't think he's better than other people, and then just a few paragraphs later tells a story that demonstrates the opposite.
There's an incest joke, delivered very casually right before a sex scene
The essays are full of toxic masculinity, and there's even one where he accuses a male roommate of being too emotionally open and then in the same essay claims that his own emotional openness isn't being reciprocated.
Having finished the book, the only good thing I have to say about it is that at least now I don't have to worry what I might have missed if I hadn't read it.
This is not a book I can recommend to anyone.
The author makes quite a few statements of opinion that he knows are fatphobic, he outrights acknowledges it at one point. He claims that he isn't being fatphobic, that he just really didn't like how he himself looked at that time in his life. That might have been a reasonable explanation, if not for all the times in later essays where he makes comments about how gross fat people's bodies are to him.
He makes claims that he doesn't think he's better than other people, and then just a few paragraphs later tells a story that demonstrates the opposite.
There's an incest joke, delivered very casually right before a sex scene
The essays are full of toxic masculinity, and there's even one where he accuses a male roommate of being too emotionally open and then in the same essay claims that his own emotional openness isn't being reciprocated.
Having finished the book, the only good thing I have to say about it is that at least now I don't have to worry what I might have missed if I hadn't read it.
This is not a book I can recommend to anyone.
pattydsf's review against another edition
4.0
”Being a Black man in America has been an entirely different experience from being Black everywhere before. Blackness is just different here. Here, it comes with a community and a history but also with an immediate fear and a proportional rage at having to be so afraid all the time. And, make no mistake, white people: I am truly afraid all the time.”
“No one is apolitical. Not a single person. The few people I’ve met who proudly consider themselves as such tend to assume that not paying attention, not voting, isn’t in itself a privilege. That it is not in itself proof that their day-to-day existence won’t be affected by choosing to stay on the sidelines, tending to literal gardens. The fact of the matter is that if you have a life that leaves you foolproof to politics, your politics approximate to “privileged.”
I thought I was checking out a humorous book of essays about a Haitian, Canadian black man trying to navigate the vicissitudes of race in United States. After typing out that sentence, I realize how mistaken I was. However, many of the quotes about this book said it was funny or humorous or witty. And I will admit, I did laugh a few times. However, this book is so much more than I thought. I am so glad I read this because I now have a better idea of who Philippe is and I am thrilled to have met him. He is real to me and that is what he was aiming for.
This is from an interview in the Los Angeles Times, “In the past, he (Philippe) has worked hard at making others feel comfortable. ‘I figured out in white spaces I would be the funny, lighthearted Black guy you can joke about anything with,’ he says. ‘That was my default social speed.’
But in the book, he rethinks his code-switching. In the book, he isn’t trying to meet your expectations.
‘I wanted to complicate that idea,’ he says. ‘I want to put readers in the shoes of a very specific Black friend. The cover of the book has this shapeless outline of a Black friend, but I hope by the end you have that shape filled in. It’s me, born in Haiti, raised in Canada. I’m in academia and the arts and I’m still trying to figure everything out, and I can be very moody and very angry at times.’”
Thank you, Philippe, for your book. I learned a lot and you made me think about parts of life in the US that I know little about.
“No one is apolitical. Not a single person. The few people I’ve met who proudly consider themselves as such tend to assume that not paying attention, not voting, isn’t in itself a privilege. That it is not in itself proof that their day-to-day existence won’t be affected by choosing to stay on the sidelines, tending to literal gardens. The fact of the matter is that if you have a life that leaves you foolproof to politics, your politics approximate to “privileged.”
I thought I was checking out a humorous book of essays about a Haitian, Canadian black man trying to navigate the vicissitudes of race in United States. After typing out that sentence, I realize how mistaken I was. However, many of the quotes about this book said it was funny or humorous or witty. And I will admit, I did laugh a few times. However, this book is so much more than I thought. I am so glad I read this because I now have a better idea of who Philippe is and I am thrilled to have met him. He is real to me and that is what he was aiming for.
This is from an interview in the Los Angeles Times, “In the past, he (Philippe) has worked hard at making others feel comfortable. ‘I figured out in white spaces I would be the funny, lighthearted Black guy you can joke about anything with,’ he says. ‘That was my default social speed.’
But in the book, he rethinks his code-switching. In the book, he isn’t trying to meet your expectations.
‘I wanted to complicate that idea,’ he says. ‘I want to put readers in the shoes of a very specific Black friend. The cover of the book has this shapeless outline of a Black friend, but I hope by the end you have that shape filled in. It’s me, born in Haiti, raised in Canada. I’m in academia and the arts and I’m still trying to figure everything out, and I can be very moody and very angry at times.’”
Thank you, Philippe, for your book. I learned a lot and you made me think about parts of life in the US that I know little about.
bookofcinz's review
3.0
Being a Black man in America has been an entirely different experience from being Black everywhere before. Blackness is just different here. Here, it comes with a community and a history but also with an immediate fear and a proportional rage at having to be so afraid all the time. And, make no mistake, white people: I am truly afraid all the time.
Ben Philippe was born in Haiti, left at an early age to live in Canada with his parents and spent majority of his twenties in the US studying in NYC. In his first collection of essays Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend he details what life is like being the only Black person in different spaces. In his introduction he notes:
Because of this wrinkle of having been born Haitian, raised Canadian, and having adopted America as my third home in adulthood, conversation both about and around race have always been a fixture in my life.
It is through these conversations and experiences he is able hilariously and soberly tell us about his life. We read about how he lived a plush life in Haiti, having gone to school with expats. He left at an early age for Canada where he had to assimilate to life in this cold, far away country. Of course, looking back he was able to see all the microaggressions and the ways in which he was discriminated against. Fast forward to moving to NYC and attending university, he is thrown into what life is really like for a Black man in America.
I really enjoyed this book more than I thought it would. Ben Philippe’s writing is hilarious, self-depreciating without being cringy and truly vulnerable in moments when it needs to be. That is very hard line to walk and he does it really well. I am always looking to read more about the Haitian experience and I think this may have been the first book I read where someone was a Haitian of means who left the island on “their terms”. I loved his relationship with his mother, how he documents their early move to Canada and what finding a new community.
I think what stood out for me also was how he detailed a breakup with his roommate who happened to be his best friend. It is not every day you get a male perspective how sad and heart breaking it is to break up with your other male friend. There is also the underlining of racism and power dynamics. Well executed!
Yes, there were some moments/experiences he went over a lot and that made the memoir dragged a lot. Overall, I would recommend this one!
Ben Philippe was born in Haiti, left at an early age to live in Canada with his parents and spent majority of his twenties in the US studying in NYC. In his first collection of essays Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend he details what life is like being the only Black person in different spaces. In his introduction he notes:
Because of this wrinkle of having been born Haitian, raised Canadian, and having adopted America as my third home in adulthood, conversation both about and around race have always been a fixture in my life.
It is through these conversations and experiences he is able hilariously and soberly tell us about his life. We read about how he lived a plush life in Haiti, having gone to school with expats. He left at an early age for Canada where he had to assimilate to life in this cold, far away country. Of course, looking back he was able to see all the microaggressions and the ways in which he was discriminated against. Fast forward to moving to NYC and attending university, he is thrown into what life is really like for a Black man in America.
I really enjoyed this book more than I thought it would. Ben Philippe’s writing is hilarious, self-depreciating without being cringy and truly vulnerable in moments when it needs to be. That is very hard line to walk and he does it really well. I am always looking to read more about the Haitian experience and I think this may have been the first book I read where someone was a Haitian of means who left the island on “their terms”. I loved his relationship with his mother, how he documents their early move to Canada and what finding a new community.
I think what stood out for me also was how he detailed a breakup with his roommate who happened to be his best friend. It is not every day you get a male perspective how sad and heart breaking it is to break up with your other male friend. There is also the underlining of racism and power dynamics. Well executed!
Yes, there were some moments/experiences he went over a lot and that made the memoir dragged a lot. Overall, I would recommend this one!
bgprincipessa's review
5.0
Something of a cross between a collection of essays and a memoir. I already love both of Philippe's YA novels, so I was predisposed to love this, and it was great. I also love how much of his life you can see in the stories he writes - the places he's lived, the jobs he's had, the relationships that have exploded.
I especially love when someone from my cohort writes a book with specific pop culture references that speak to my soul. Philippe got his start writing Xander/Angel/Buffy fanfic - I died listening to that. He references Gossip Girl approximately 1 million times, and The Social Network at least 5, including an "Eduardo Saverin style breakdown" during the breakup of him and his roommate "Mark." (And how often do you see male writers talking about the emotional upheaval of friendship?!)
Two of my favorite turns of phrase: "a Daisy Buchanan level of carelessness" and "the tragic Marissa Cooper, played by the even more tragic Mischa Barton." *chef's kiss*
There is an entire section in which he describes how he lost a significant amount of weight, and the reactions he got when he returned to school, that really rubbed me the wrong way.... and then he explicitly acknowledged how that section would sound to readers, and how the 2000's were a different time, and turns it on its head in such a fascinating way. It reminded me of Bo Burnham's Inside and how he both acknowledges the problematic work he has done and apologizes for it, while also realizing it's still there anyway. Then Philippe rewrote that section using 2020 terminology and it really shows you how the culture hasn't changed, we just use different words to make it sound better.
There is also so much anger in his writing about #BlackLivesMatter, which I can't do justice. Overall it just gave me so much to think about, and I really enjoyed the ride. I was already shouting his praises all over the place, but now I will even more.
I especially love when someone from my cohort writes a book with specific pop culture references that speak to my soul. Philippe got his start writing Xander/Angel/Buffy fanfic - I died listening to that. He references Gossip Girl approximately 1 million times, and The Social Network at least 5, including an "Eduardo Saverin style breakdown" during the breakup of him and his roommate "Mark." (And how often do you see male writers talking about the emotional upheaval of friendship?!)
Two of my favorite turns of phrase: "a Daisy Buchanan level of carelessness" and "the tragic Marissa Cooper, played by the even more tragic Mischa Barton." *chef's kiss*
There is an entire section in which he describes how he lost a significant amount of weight, and the reactions he got when he returned to school, that really rubbed me the wrong way.... and then he explicitly acknowledged how that section would sound to readers, and how the 2000's were a different time, and turns it on its head in such a fascinating way. It reminded me of Bo Burnham's Inside and how he both acknowledges the problematic work he has done and apologizes for it, while also realizing it's still there anyway. Then Philippe rewrote that section using 2020 terminology and it really shows you how the culture hasn't changed, we just use different words to make it sound better.
There is also so much anger in his writing about #BlackLivesMatter, which I can't do justice. Overall it just gave me so much to think about, and I really enjoyed the ride. I was already shouting his praises all over the place, but now I will even more.