Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Assembly

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

Assembly by Natasha Brown

29 reviews

drapetomaniac's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book is absolutely wonderful. It's a small snippet into the narrator's life as she navigates being a black woman in corporate London. As the book progresses and she arrives at her boyfriend's estate, she enters a reflective moment and thinks about her life in relation to English nationalism and how she is contributing to that. It doesn't feel like the same points repeated in other books, however, which makes this book even more special.

My only tool of expression is the language of this place. Its bias and assumptions permeate all reason I could construct from it.

This line is definitely my favorite in the book. I don't have much to say about this quote, it simply encompasses how colonialism has affected everything in modern life, even the way language is worded.
Overall, a fantastic quick read and would 100% recommend.

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jenmcreads's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is one of my favorite reads of the year. For how short this one is, it manages to pack in a lot of worthwhile meditations on race and gender and class and the fallout of colonialism. The writing style is unique but accessible. I would highly encourage just about anyone to read this.

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thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

brown's assembly is so effective in achieving its goals that it's akin to a manifesto, a subdued rallying cry of exasperation, exhaustion, rage, and detached numbness of those who are black and british.

there's not a whole lot of plot here, merely different contexts and scenes from the narrator's life that eventually come together to form a finished puzzle and allow the reader to understand the reasoning behind her ultimate choice.

the novel's very reflective and introspective, and straddles the border of being almost preachy at times, but somehow it works: one couldnt possibly understand the narrator's current circumstances w/o being aware of the larger historical and political forces that precede her, shaping britain and its ppl into what they are - and how they act towards her and those like her - today.

i have to say brown does a stellar job of depicting what it's like to be a black british woman, even one on the ascent. i felt claustrophobic, exasperated, constantly judged simply reading abt the narrator's daily experience. the lie of being taught to always strive and be better so things can get better, but in reality it's never enough no matter what one does, white ppl will always deem minorities as outsiders granted unfair advantages. no wonder the narrator's seemingly bone-deep exhausted; the clownery rly never ends.

while the narrative can feel disjointed at times bc of the frequent, abrupt changes in setting, assembly is nevertheless an impactful book.

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marissab's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

franklola's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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readingkitty's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

4.5

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just_one_more_paige's review against another edition

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challenging reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This is another book, I've had a couple of these recently, that I got as an ALC from Libro.fm without really knowing anything about it or having seen any reviews of it. In fact, in the couple months that I have had it before getting around to listening to it, I still haven't seen many (if any) reviews of it, though it has been featured in a few TBR stacks. Anyways, I was really surprised to see that it was so short! And not just short but, after getting the book at the library as well (I like to have a physical copy on hand while listening, if possible, and was very glad to in this case especially, as there were so many passages that I wanted to transcribe), physically tiny, like Adichie's Dear Ijeawele or We Should All be Feminists. However, do not let the size/length fool you, this little book hits like a ton of bricks!

Assembly's unnamed narrator is a Black British woman, a millennial, a "model" citizen who followed the conflicting directions the world threw at her about achievement and being the best, but doing so in an unobtrusive way. As she travels to her boyfriend's family's country estate to prepare for a celebration his parents are hosting, she reflects on a recent job promotion, news about her health, and her life trajectory in general.

I'm just gonna start this review with a repeat statement: this tiny book hits like a ton of freaking bricks. It's one that could easily be read/listened to in a single sitting, but that you purposefully want to split into shorter readings because you need the time to process and digest. Because somehow, in these hundred pages, Brown manages to address, and scathingly call out, everything from racism to sexism to capitalism to nationalism to classism. And she does it in a way that is both intelligently (mildly subtly) integrated, yet absolutely unmistakable. In addition to that, the words themselves have a phenomenal cadence to them, a sort of urgent poetry, in which you can feel the deliberate precision of every word chosen. You can almost literally feel the intensity; it is genius writing.

As a millennial woman myself, though not Black or British (for full transparency for what I can relate to personally and what experiences are not my own), I have to say that I did identify with quite a few of the workplace/career/capitalist related commentaries. The way Brown speaks about the external expectations of reaching for an arbitrarily defined, supposedly universal “goal” to prove you’ve “succeeded” in the "proper” way - and the confines of those standard expectations - was deeply relatable. In fact, no literature I have ever read has so successfully and succinctly portrayed that most millennial of feelings. Similarly, Browns' existential questioning about purpose resonates. Taking it even further, she also speaks to race/class/sex issues surrounding “cultural capital," and the unattainable expectations on immigrants/racial minorities (and to some extent, though less applicable in her personal case, the poor). Her commentary on the never-ending requirements and owe-ing and assimilation as the only option for survival/advancement, despite incessant financial/societal payment already rendered, and the fact that nothing of the sort should be required to exist as a fully recognized human in the first place, is acerbic.

A final note, because I was undecided by the end: if you have read this, did you think her health situation (keeping it vague to avoid any potential for spoilers) was real or a metaphor? I felt like it was addressed a few times as real in the story, but also functioned as a gorgeous and horribly real metaphor, and I just couldn't decide. I mean there is nothing that says it can't be both, but really, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Well, holy wow. This little book was sharply insightful in a way that comes across as satirical, but is too real to actually be satirical. It was mind-blowing in the profundity of its brevity. A pointed and cuttingly effective indictment. Overall, I really recommend this quick, and quite affecting, reading experience.

There were so many passages and quotes that jumped at me (which should come as no surprise, if you read the rest of the review). Enjoy this selection...and then go pick this one up for yourself:

“The familiar rhythms of our stacked lives have become a kind of closeness.”

“It was survival only in the sense that a meme survives. Generational persistence, without meaning or memory.”

“I’d traded in my life for a sliver of middle-class comfort.”

“I knew these were the things to want, the right things to reach for. But I felt sick of reaching, enduring. Of the ascent.”

“Dread. Every day is an opportunity to fuck up. Every decision, every meeting, every report. There's no success, only the temporary aversion of failure. Dread. [...] I repeat the day over, interrogate it for errors or missteps or - anything. Dread, dread, dread, dread. Anything at all could be the thing that fucks everything up. I know it. Dread. [...] I don’t remember when I didn't feel this.”

“But there’s always something else: the next demand, the next criticism. This endless complying, attaining, exceeding - why?”

“It’s disorientating, prevents you from forming an identity. Living in a place you're forever told to leave, without knowing, without knowledge. Without history.”

“But what it takes to get there isn't what you need once you’ve arrive.”

“Their culture becomes parody on my body.”

“You cannot cut through their perception of reality.”

“Be the best. Work harder, work smarter. Exceed every expectation. But also, be invisible, imperceptible. Don't make anyone uncomfortable. Don't inconvenience. Exist in the negative only, the space around. Do not insert yourself into the main narrative. Go unnoticed. Become the air.”

“It’s evident now, obvious in retrospect as the proof of root-two's irrationality, that these world superpowers are neither infallible, nor superior. They're nothing, not without a brutally enforced relativity. An organized, systematic brutality that their soft and sagging children can scarcely stomach - won't even acknowledge. Yet cling to as truth. There was never any absolute, no decree from God. Just vicious, random chance. And then, compounding.”

“How do we examine the legacy of colonization when the basic facts of its construction are disputed in the minds of its beneficiaries? [...] ...a deliberate exclusion and obfuscation within the country's national curriculum. Through this, more than records were destroyed. The erasure itself was erased.”

“Surviving makes me a participant in their narrative.” (Holy fucking shit what a line, what an insight, what a realization.)

Content Warnings

shelfofunread's review against another edition

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challenging reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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jamieleepilk's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Thank you Hamish Hamilton/Penguin for the proof copy. UK Release 3/6/21.
Little book that you can easily absorb in one sitting, packs a massive punch with utterly gut wrenching writing! Exciting debut.

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