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illuminazione's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
5.0
The narrator of this tour de force of a novel is an ostensibly successful Black British woman. She has made it in a predominantly white patriarchal corporate world. A promotion is on the horizon and her rich white boyfriend just invited her to family garden party. As she preaches to young girls that they, too, can get where she is, she feels her world to be a constant struggle and her 'dream' a lie, the success nothing more than a cage society's systems keep her in. When she receives a life-changing medical diagnosis, her inner turmoil reaches a breaking point.
The visceral and inventive writing style does not sugarcoat exactly how trapped the narrator feels and makes the reader feel with her. The issues discussed - racism, sexism, classism and sexual harassment - are portrayed so real and inescapable, you understand how she comes to the decision she makes in the end.
The visceral and inventive writing style does not sugarcoat exactly how trapped the narrator feels and makes the reader feel with her. The issues discussed - racism, sexism, classism and sexual harassment - are portrayed so real and inescapable, you understand how she comes to the decision she makes in the end.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Sexism, Terminal illness, Sexual harassment, and Classism
lavishrebellion's review
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
I first noticed this book on a few collages of book covers in flatlay presentations and it was also listed for books under 200 pages. It was a quick read, but more importantly, I did enjoy it. Under the guise of a day in the life, through its lead character in the UK, Brown expresses the concerns, realities, curiosities and devastations of black people living in a world in which so much of it has been buttressed by colonization. I didn’t expect such commentary. Quite moving work by Brown.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
raindrops333's review
challenging
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
candycains's review against another edition
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This book reads as a series of micro essays on black womanhood in Britain, wrapped in the package of a slice of life of a woman meeting her in-laws. At times I felt that the writing was so literary and beyond the confines of plot that it lost me a little. Yet that is simultaneously one of its strongest points. A very poignant and poetic read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Racism, and Sexual assault
felicityebhaslin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Classism
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Police brutality, and Colonisation
Minor: Racial slurs
marywahlmeierbracciano's review against another edition
challenging
tense
fast-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
This haunting book is sure to get you out of a reading slump. Calculated and spare, it follows an accomplished Black British woman in finance as she navigates workplace misogynoir, a medical diagnosis, and her relationship with her boyfriend—a white man of old money. In sharp, evocative fragments, she contemplates the part she plays in the system that disenfranchises people like her but even more so interrogates the complicity of her boyfriend’s family.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Misogyny
Minor: Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, and Medical content
myriamelisa's review against another edition
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism
mackenzi's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Contemplative and sad. There are a lot of very relateable moments which made me feel hollow, though on some level much of Assembly seems so distant and out of reach. More than anything this book highlights the feelings I've had of trying to reach out and show my perspective, illustrate the magnitude of institutional racism, built into the system from the ground up, to people in my life, and have them unable to see beyond their individual selves, unable to see the systems that build every part of society. That gap sometimes seems insurmountable. And how do you construct an identity in that world, in their world, when you have that knowledge? Trying to force oneself into that worldview means you're sanding yourself down from a full human being into a shadow of one. Both pain and pleasure leech away until there's nothing of either. At their refusal or inability to see, you have to pretend along with them if you want to have a personal relationship. You have to pretend to enjoy being hollow. And Assembly is a story of someone who has done that for her whole life, even while feeling how soulless and impersonal it is, how deeply depressed she's become, while feeling how she's still a part of that imperialist, colonialist machine, be she successful or failing within it.
It's prettily written and I enjoyed the style. The jumping between the present moment and thoughts of other events, the past, summarizing feelings, drawing conclusions, all in an uncertain voice which halts and interupts itself frequently. It's an easy style for my brain to read, very similar to my own thought process. And the style conjures a distant, detatched, anxious yet resigned perspective. It's very well constructed.
I thought it was funny how most of the top reviews for this book on Goodreads are white men. How they praise it.
It's prettily written and I enjoyed the style. The jumping between the present moment and thoughts of other events, the past, summarizing feelings, drawing conclusions, all in an uncertain voice which halts and interupts itself frequently. It's an easy style for my brain to read, very similar to my own thought process. And the style conjures a distant, detatched, anxious yet resigned perspective. It's very well constructed.
I thought it was funny how most of the top reviews for this book on Goodreads are white men. How they praise it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Colonisation, and Classism
sangsmiles's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, and Sexism
Moderate: Hate crime, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Colonisation, and Deportation
ssinforshort's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.25
This was unique, super short, but also packed with so much.
This stream of consciousness book kept me interested, and included a lot Black British history that I wasn't aware of. I will definitely be doing more research after this.
I do think this would have been better if it was told fully in verse. The even shorter form would have made it easier to dissect. Though, this may have been the authors intent.
This stream of consciousness book kept me interested, and included a lot Black British history that I wasn't aware of. I will definitely be doing more research after this.
I do think this would have been better if it was told fully in verse. The even shorter form would have made it easier to dissect. Though, this may have been the authors intent.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Racism, and Colonisation