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A review by amybbooks
How to Be Black by Baratunde R. Thurston
4.0
This book was excellent. I have a hard time rating non-fiction, but there are a few things I'm looking for. I want to enjoy reading the book. I want it to teach me something or impact me in some way. I also try to determine whether the book was written in a way that allowed it to do what it set out to do.
I think this book definitely accomplished the goals of both teaching me something and making me laugh. Baratunde's style is so sarcastic and ironic that I know this book wouldn't be for everyone. I don't think everyone would get it. I think it's also possible that there were things that I didn't fully get as a white person. This book did teach me a lot though. It exposed a lot of assumptions that people make about Black people... about the things that they like, and the ways that they think. I knew that people stereotyped Black people... but it was another thing to see it all laid out on paper. I also thought it was really interesting to hear about the experiences of a Black man that we don't often hear about. Baratunde went to a private school and Harvard, and he's had opportunities that a lot of people haven't. Yet, there are things that he understands that I never will because he is Black and I am white. I loved his style, and I loved listening to his narration in the audiobook. I give this book a 4.5 star rating, and I'm only taking off a bit because it wasn't what I would consider a "page turner". I didn't mind putting it down because I wasn't completely enthralled by it. That being said, this book wasn't really written in a narrative style that would have made it that way, and it was still entertaining.
I think this book definitely accomplished the goals of both teaching me something and making me laugh. Baratunde's style is so sarcastic and ironic that I know this book wouldn't be for everyone. I don't think everyone would get it. I think it's also possible that there were things that I didn't fully get as a white person. This book did teach me a lot though. It exposed a lot of assumptions that people make about Black people... about the things that they like, and the ways that they think. I knew that people stereotyped Black people... but it was another thing to see it all laid out on paper. I also thought it was really interesting to hear about the experiences of a Black man that we don't often hear about. Baratunde went to a private school and Harvard, and he's had opportunities that a lot of people haven't. Yet, there are things that he understands that I never will because he is Black and I am white. I loved his style, and I loved listening to his narration in the audiobook. I give this book a 4.5 star rating, and I'm only taking off a bit because it wasn't what I would consider a "page turner". I didn't mind putting it down because I wasn't completely enthralled by it. That being said, this book wasn't really written in a narrative style that would have made it that way, and it was still entertaining.