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ebonyutley's review
2.0
A whole book about black people and love: I mean, love is what I study, but I was skeptical at first and yes there were a few but just a few that didn’t represent a love that I would like to have but most of the stories in the loving feeling first half of the book just made me giddy. I kept saying to myself, I want to be loved like that. Truth told, I enjoyed the fiction stories more than I did the real life ones. I am trying not to believe that fiction is more hopeful than real life for black love, but that’s how I felt. Maybe I just don’t read enough fiction. The ties that bind section was much more tedious. If I had to read another story about a dead grandparent, I was going to throw the book out of the car window. I started skipping around because all of the stories started to sound the same. I know that love is more than heterosexual intimate relationships (nope no same sex intimate relationships repped here), but the family love that she depicted didn’t resonate with my experiences of family. I started to feel deficient because my grandparents didn’t act like the beloved ones in the stories. I felt more conflicted about the binding stories than the relational ones. One can always find another lover, but we’re stuck with family. I felt like if my family didn’t love the way black love was represented here then there was fundamentally something wrong with me and I didn’t want to feel attacked by a book I was reading for fun. Maybe my family just has issues, but Golden could have done a better job with the diversity of stories selected for the second half. The first was right on. The second was suspect.
Favorite Quote:
Love is a Verb—Kim McLarin
307—“Lovelessness leaves a mark that makes it harder to get love and to receive it, which leaves a mark, which makes it harder, and round and round. The people who most need love, the ones with the biggest holes in their hearts from childhood wounds, are the ones least likely to get it, because those same wounds create in them attributes and personalities that frighten or drive love away.”
Favorite Quote:
Love is a Verb—Kim McLarin
307—“Lovelessness leaves a mark that makes it harder to get love and to receive it, which leaves a mark, which makes it harder, and round and round. The people who most need love, the ones with the biggest holes in their hearts from childhood wounds, are the ones least likely to get it, because those same wounds create in them attributes and personalities that frighten or drive love away.”
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