Reviews

Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson

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seymone's review against another edition

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4.0

4.25 stars

angelaptrice's review

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emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

melodys_library's review against another edition

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4.0

This book brought me BACK to 1998. It’s a fast-paced, part murder mystery, part social commentary, part love letter to Brooklyn. Jackson dropped knowledge of hip hop and Black history throughout, and I was here for it! Also, the cover art is dope.

Dislike: Too many ellipses…

missberlyreads's review

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emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

slsj_'s review against another edition

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5.0

I can’t even properly articulate how much I actually enjoyed this book.

So instead I’m just going to put bullet points as to why you should read it.

- it’s hilarious
- the characters and their development are amazing
- the storyline flowed even (especially) with the multiple POVS
- it represents people of colour and black neighbourhoods
- HIP HOP and RAP are a central theme
- it’s set in the 90’s
- the writing style is so unique: this is a gem of a book that uses slang in a way that didn’t want to make me tear my hair out

joana_stormblessed's review against another edition

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3.0

Actual rating 2.5
This book was middle of the road for me but it might be because I didn't really connect with the audiobook until about half-way through. I really did enjoy the second half of the book.

What is it about?
We follow three main protagonists - Quadir, Jarrell and Jasmine - who are all dealing with the death of their friend Steph (or brother in Jasmine's case) who has been murdered. Steph was really into rap music, but never did anything with his songs during his life. After his death, his three friends find all of his songs and lyrics and think that it is a shame to let such a good voice go to waste. Steph's songs were not all about sex and drugs, but they talked about the hardships of life and of living in the hood . So what do Quadir, Jarrell and Jasmine do? They publish Steph's songs, prentending he is still alive. However, as Steph's songs gain in popularity and more and more people want to meet this up and coming artist, things start to get a little complicated ...
In parallel to this, the three friends want to use the money earned from Steph's success to hire a detective to find out what really happened to their friend.

What did I think?
First of all, I want to preface this review by saying that I listened to the audiobook which is a full-cast audiobook, so please do yourself a favor and listen to it. But here's the thing: I don't know why, but the audiobook did not grab my attention for the first 40% of it (which could be my own fault for playing Pokemon Shield as I was listening to it). The last 60% were good, but I had already not been invested for a huge chunk of the story. So again it might be entirely because I did not pay 100% attention to the audiobook in the beginning that my rating is low-ish .
But yeah, I know that at the end of the year this book will not be 100% rememberable. The characters did't feel super fleshed out and I had no attachments whatsoever to them. And I cannot rate a book higher than a 3-star if I am not attached to the characters (unless I am reading grim dark fantasy and even then...).
This book tackled some very important topics and I think that it is important that teens read it, but I do not think that it is a fantastic novel. At least not in my opinion.