White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Let me start by saying there is a reason why this title is on often near the top of many lists for anyone but especially white people who want to educate themselves on racism and racial inequality especially in the US. The author is up front about her being white herself, in fact she repeats that every so often throughout the book, often in order to point out that a lot of the things she has to say sound a little better to most other […]
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
In Girl, Woman, Other, Bernadine Evaristo traces the impacts of identity, racism, xenophobia, feminism, slavery, classism, and so much more through many generations of British women of color who are not tied to each other only by blood but rather through encounters and relationships, some briefer than others. Each of these women has a different history and understanding of their relationship to the world that greatly affects how they view themselves and others around them. Each of their stories comes beautifully up against conflict where […]
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
As always, I’m three years late to the party with this one. Mostly, I loved it. I’m on book #7 for the year, but this is the first I’m reviewing after dropping out early last year when becoming a foster parent ate my life, and I’m still getting in the swing of how to structure reviews so for this one I’m going to just do liked and disliked lists. Liked: I’m a sucker for a book with a large cast of characters who all feel […]
American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
American Spy opens with a literal bang, the way most spy novels do. But then it becomes something different – more of a memoir, more of a reckoning with the past that led to the opening shot. Marie, the titular spy, is the lone black female employee in her FBI field office. Attacked in her home, she flees New York to her mother’s country of Martinique; meanwhile, she reflects on her girlhood with her sister, now deceased, and her time as a spy during the […]
You Can't Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson
I decided randomly a couple of months ago that I was only going to read books by or about badass ladies in January 2020 (the only time I could possibly hold to a theme month is the beginning of the year; it gets too messy later on). It feels auspicious to start out the year this way, and this book was a great start to that. Comedian and podcaster Phoebe Robinson is smart and funny and she has great things to say. This book is […]
Stay Woke by Tehama Lopez Bunyasi
Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. Please note this book will be released on September 24, 2019. So I read this book a while back when I got it via NetGalley. I honestly just wasn’t in the mood to review it though. Not because it wasn’t a good primer about systematic racism and why black lives matter. But because I am just sick of justifying my existence to people out there. I don’t know […]
