Reviews - There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

1.93k reviews for:

There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

Hanif Abdurraqib

4.47 AVERAGE

literarycari's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

kellybeth732's review against another edition

2.0

Beautifully written, but not for me.

katies_bookshelves's review against another edition

5.0

hopeful informative inspiring reflective

meghan72's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional hopeful slow-paced

this book is an incredible combination of basketball in ohio from the 90s onward, abdurraqib's personal life, and the inextricable connection between basketball and the Black American experience. his mixture of poetry and prose, street talk and lyricism, sports games and real life were beautifully done and really grounded professional basketball in reality, both as a metaphor for the ups and downs of life, but also as having a real, direct impact on the lives of everyday people. even though i didn't know anything about basketball, abdurraqib makes you feel like you love it as much as he and his friends do, like you are right there with him. you can feel the power of lebron james, the hurt of him leaving the cavs, and the joy of the cavs finally winning the championship with him when he returned. it was definitely dense at times, but in a good way where you really have to dig into the words instead of just moving past them. there are so many parts of this book that i want to return to, little phrases that stuck with me, and big feelings and ideas too. i also want to read his other books and see how they are different or similar.

some quotes i enjoyed:

"...I am looking up at the sky and thinking, again, of the most cartoon version of heaven...a place where the dead have nothing else to do but watch the living they loved and still love, watching all of the sweetness lurking around the corners we ourselves cannot see, shaking their heads as we deny ourselves our waiting miracles. This is a self-indulgent way to imagine the life after this life, but I have massaged all other meaning I can out of the sky, out of the shapes of clouds and the oranges and reds that fight their way through those clouds while the sun laughs its way to surrender" (pg 18)

"I am sorry for what has been passed down to me without my knowing, what has just shown up on the doorstep and found its way in." (pg 32)

"they were still a group of kids from the city. like all of us. Their ascension meant something, even for those of us who were residue in the midst of their greatness" (pg 48)