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alaiyo0685's reviews
606 reviews
How to Be Black by Baratunde R. Thurston
4.0
As a Black woman, I'm pretty easily reeled in by books whose titles suggest the author is trying to be either descriptive or, better/worse, prescriptive about Blackness. Baratunde Thurston's How to Be Black is clearly an example of this...and it definitely falls on the "better" side of that line for me. A collection of essays written mostly by Thurston himself, with interjections from others whose life work revolves around issues of race and identity in North America, How to be Black mixed punniness and provocativeness poignantly.
Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis
2.0
I feel blasphemous rating something by Angela Davis as just "okay," because she's an idol of mine, but here goes. I feel like this book was a game-changer when it came out. In 1983, I'm sure I would have given this book 5 stars.
But I wasn't alive yet in 1983. In fact, my mother was only 14. So by the time I did get around to reading this book nearly 30 years later, I felt like everything she was telling me, I'd heard before. What was revolutionary in the 80s, I took for granted in 2012. And on the one hand, that's great for where we've come as feminists and scholars...but it wasn't so great for getting through this book. It felt...basic, like a black feminist primer or something.
But I wasn't alive yet in 1983. In fact, my mother was only 14. So by the time I did get around to reading this book nearly 30 years later, I felt like everything she was telling me, I'd heard before. What was revolutionary in the 80s, I took for granted in 2012. And on the one hand, that's great for where we've come as feminists and scholars...but it wasn't so great for getting through this book. It felt...basic, like a black feminist primer or something.
The Conversation: How Black Men and Women Can Build Loving, Trusting Relationships by Hill Harper
2.0
There are some great quotes in here, but all in all, the book wasn't life-changing in any way.
Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What it Means to Be Black Now by Touré
5.0
I loved loved loved this book! I was wary of the term post-Blackness, because when I first read it, I assumed it meant Blackness as a thing to get "over" or "past," but *spoiler alert* that's not what it means at all! Toure is post-limitations on Blackness, post-"Black people don't do [x]," post-"not Black enough," post-"too Black." Those are things I am more than ready to get over, so I give this book a solid 5 stars. Right on, brothaman, right on.
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
4.0
A third novel riddled with loss and the struggle for redemption, And the Mountains Echoed takes a step back from the heartbreaking direct relationships of Hosseini's first novel, The Kite Runner, to show how the sins of an earlier generation seep through the family line. Hosseini surprises his readers with unexpected plot twists, as is his usual style, and makes us hungry for the connections between characters and events that he slowly unveils. And the Mountains Echoed is definitely a page-turner, but didn't have me as fully invested in the characters or their world as Hosseini's first novel did.