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megelizabeth's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
3.5
"...I couldn’t admit to feeling weak. That’s not something I ever saw women who looked like me do. We are never given the space to say we feel that we can’t do any more."
I went into this thinking it was a straight non-fiction book, whereas really it's more of a memoir, though I didn't end up necessarily minding that. The narrative style is very open and engaging, and there are a lot of excellent points made and discussions opened up. Although I strongly disagree with Brathwaite with regard to private schooling, and feel that her exploration here needed much more nuance, I otherwise gained a lot of valuable insights, and I liked that a lot of topics and life intricacies are covered.
However, I found the narrative to be structured in a very disjointed way, and the many strong points made weren't done so in the most cohesive way. There are also direct contradictions on occasion, and I quite often found myself having to reread parts to try to make sense of what was currently being talked about.
I'd never come across Brathwaite before, so I'll definitely be following her socials and keeping an eye out for what she does next, as her work is important and she has a lot of great things to say. This particular book just didn't quite end up hitting the mark for me, but it was still a worthy read overall.
I went into this thinking it was a straight non-fiction book, whereas really it's more of a memoir, though I didn't end up necessarily minding that. The narrative style is very open and engaging, and there are a lot of excellent points made and discussions opened up. Although I strongly disagree with Brathwaite with regard to private schooling, and feel that her exploration here needed much more nuance, I otherwise gained a lot of valuable insights, and I liked that a lot of topics and life intricacies are covered.
However, I found the narrative to be structured in a very disjointed way, and the many strong points made weren't done so in the most cohesive way. There are also direct contradictions on occasion, and I quite often found myself having to reread parts to try to make sense of what was currently being talked about.
I'd never come across Brathwaite before, so I'll definitely be following her socials and keeping an eye out for what she does next, as her work is important and she has a lot of great things to say. This particular book just didn't quite end up hitting the mark for me, but it was still a worthy read overall.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Abortion, Child abuse, Death of parent, Death, Pregnancy, Misogyny, and Racism
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