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kimberly28's review
slow-paced
2.5
Oof sorry to be the first reviewer like this. If you think you might be interested in this book, don’t let me deter you from reading it with my low score, if for no other reason than to get more opinions here to consider.
George Nesbitt tried to get this book published for many years, and you can tell that he was editing and re-editing and re-editing the whole time. This is extremely overwritten. Each sentence has like 9 clauses and is structured in the most complicated way possible. Several times I had to go back to the beginning of a sentence because I forgot where it began.
Other major complaint: the last two real chapters just brag about his family and I’m sorry but I do not care. Stuff like “my wife has been on the deaconess committee of this church on the street for fifteen years, and all our kids are polite”, except it’s probably worded more like “the children of which I have had some amount of a hand in raising, can be found referring to the adults with whom they interact by “missus” and “sir”, much in the fashion in which has been believed by me to be proper”. I'm not quoting, but I’m not exaggerating. And I'm also being mean so I'll stop. I would have really loved to hear about the experience he had raising kids and such in Chicago, how life has changed since his own childhood, how race relations have evolved etc. But it's hardly stories at all, it's mostly a list of accomplishments which I just didn't have the interest in or patience for. I may have skimmed/skipped a bunch here.
I’d like to read a book like this, about a Black person growing up through the 20th century and facing both daily and lifelong challenges that come with that, but I didn’t much like to read this book.
George Nesbitt tried to get this book published for many years, and you can tell that he was editing and re-editing and re-editing the whole time. This is extremely overwritten. Each sentence has like 9 clauses and is structured in the most complicated way possible. Several times I had to go back to the beginning of a sentence because I forgot where it began.
Other major complaint: the last two real chapters just brag about his family and I’m sorry but I do not care. Stuff like “my wife has been on the deaconess committee of this church on the street for fifteen years, and all our kids are polite”, except it’s probably worded more like “the children of which I have had some amount of a hand in raising, can be found referring to the adults with whom they interact by “missus” and “sir”, much in the fashion in which has been believed by me to be proper”. I'm not quoting, but I’m not exaggerating. And I'm also being mean so I'll stop. I would have really loved to hear about the experience he had raising kids and such in Chicago, how life has changed since his own childhood, how race relations have evolved etc. But it's hardly stories at all, it's mostly a list of accomplishments which I just didn't have the interest in or patience for. I may have skimmed/skipped a bunch here.
I’d like to read a book like this, about a Black person growing up through the 20th century and facing both daily and lifelong challenges that come with that, but I didn’t much like to read this book.
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