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kronksaur2's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I devoured this book pretty quickly, the subject matter it covers is quite relevant to a lot of the racial and economic justice nonfiction I'm reading, but in this book Bump manages to create a fictional story that breathes the same degree of humanity into its cast. By no means an "easy read" I nevertheless finished the book quickly, the emphasis on emotion and character giving the story a rhythm. To me I associate this with the fact that in a nonfiction book there would be an appropriate level of detail and analysis concerning specific facts of each event and including perspectives from multiple sources. However in this book Bump attacks the same issues within a fictional story, which gives him the gift of being able to embody a single character, and instead of fixating on historical accuracy, he instead fixates on the human experience of the people who live out the trauma depicted in nonfiction stories of the same events. I would highly recommend this book to anybody who is feeling burnt out by research papers and case studies to spend some time living in the circumstances those cold facts describe.
nina_serrianne's review against another edition
4.0
The writing is brilliant. The dark humor and witty banter succeeds in making laugh out loud lines in this coming of age novel. For anyone wanting a Holden Caulfield story, they should read this instead. Within the fast pace dialogue and stunning writing; is the exploration of deep emotionally loaded issues, race, police violence, discrimination, abandonment, and wanting. The story is totally engrossing and the characters are lovable. Paul was one of my favorites. I read it in basically one sitting. The first 2/3rds of the book is unbelievably good and 5 stars.
Disappointingly, the ending felt misplaced and the story really fell apart in the last section. Reading other reviews, some interpret the ending to say that there is no safe place in America for a Black man. I’m sitting with this because to me the plot points felt disconnected and part of a different story. I wanted more about Claude’s experience in college and felt like it was just starting to scratch the surface of how students of color feel tokenized at white colleges. I was really disappointed in the end, not because I wanted Claude to assimilate but because it felt disjointed from the rest of the story, but the more I sit with it, the more there is to unpack.
Disappointingly, the ending felt misplaced and the story really fell apart in the last section. Reading other reviews, some interpret the ending to say that there is no safe place in America for a Black man. I’m sitting with this because to me the plot points felt disconnected and part of a different story. I wanted more about Claude’s experience in college and felt like it was just starting to scratch the surface of how students of color feel tokenized at white colleges. I was really disappointed in the end, not because I wanted Claude to assimilate but because it felt disjointed from the rest of the story, but the more I sit with it, the more there is to unpack.
afbaird's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
eveningstar_reader's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
bookwormsandcoffeestains's review against another edition
4.0
Algonquin Book Tour stop! Everywhere You Don’t Belong is a debut novel from Gabriel Bump set in the South Side of Chicago that focuses on a young black man named Claude McKay Love. Raised by his civil rights-era grandmother, Claude faces typical teenage struggles but also struggles to live up to the expectations set for him. His grandmother dreams of him being an activist. When riots erupt in their neighborhood, he hesitates to get involved. In the second part of this book, Claude moves far away from Chicago for college, believing that he can leave the existing racial tensions behind. Unfortunately, he quickly learns that is more difficult than he thought.
•
I flew through this novel! I loved how witty Bump’s writing was and how he inserted dark humor. This novel led me to every emotion on the spectrum. I particularly loved how Bump intertwined Claude and Claude’s grandmother lives. His grandmother provided an additional perspective to the shaping of Claude’s character. I would love to meet his grandmother, as she was a wonderful role model for Claude. Claude’s character arc was beautifully written. My only complaint was that I felt that 75% of the novel was really strong, but the last quarter seemed to wrap up very quickly. Maybe that was just me though, since I could’ve read 100 more pages about Claude and his grandmother. I look forward to reading Bump’s next work!
•
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
*Thank you to Algonquin books for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review.*
•
I flew through this novel! I loved how witty Bump’s writing was and how he inserted dark humor. This novel led me to every emotion on the spectrum. I particularly loved how Bump intertwined Claude and Claude’s grandmother lives. His grandmother provided an additional perspective to the shaping of Claude’s character. I would love to meet his grandmother, as she was a wonderful role model for Claude. Claude’s character arc was beautifully written. My only complaint was that I felt that 75% of the novel was really strong, but the last quarter seemed to wrap up very quickly. Maybe that was just me though, since I could’ve read 100 more pages about Claude and his grandmother. I look forward to reading Bump’s next work!
•
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
*Thank you to Algonquin books for the free eARC in exchange for an honest review.*
booksandcoffeerequired's review against another edition
2.0
While this book wasn’t for me, I think this is a debut novel that will resonate with quite a few, especially if you enjoy novels that play around with structure and center on themes of coming of age/identity. The side characters were great(I loved Claude’s grandma!), and there were some passages that had me riveted, but the flatness of the main character Claude and the over use of “he said, she said” during dialogue kept me not fully engaged with the story. Adding on the more experimental nature of the story made it even more jumbled for me. While none of the book was “bad” in any way, it just didn’t work for this reader. Sometimes it really is just me, and not the book.
Thank you to NetGalley & Algonquin Books for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review & blog tour post.
Thank you to NetGalley & Algonquin Books for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review & blog tour post.
theoreads_'s review against another edition
4.0
being unfamiliar with chicago's south shore other what's projected by the media as a dangerous landscape, i knew that's not entirely true and Gabriel Bump captures that cleverly, traumatically, and comically.
in everywhere you don't belong protagonist Claude McKay Love is abandoned by his parents. and following his life he's abandoned by most who enter it. you would think that enduring the instability of his surroundings would make him relish but throughout this book you feel his will to define himself. his rejection of the violence, horror, and hatred he faced to survive from a part of the chicago that most don't really care about was beautiful.
and i have to mention, grandma & paul were the highlight of this book. bump's ability to write humous dialog was exceptional.
in everywhere you don't belong protagonist Claude McKay Love is abandoned by his parents. and following his life he's abandoned by most who enter it. you would think that enduring the instability of his surroundings would make him relish but throughout this book you feel his will to define himself. his rejection of the violence, horror, and hatred he faced to survive from a part of the chicago that most don't really care about was beautiful.
and i have to mention, grandma & paul were the highlight of this book. bump's ability to write humous dialog was exceptional.
arisbookcorner's review against another edition
4.0
IQ "'There isn't a crack big enough to swallow him,' Grandma said. 'My grandson will spend his life conquering people like you.'" (27)
The opening line of this book might be one of my new favorites, "'If there's one thing wrong with people,' Paul always said, 'it's that no one remembers the shit that they should, and everyone remembers the shit that doesn't matter for shit'" (1). It's an opening salvo to a book that takes us on a wild ride and breaks our heart at the same time, full of eccentric characters and outrageous situations. The only remaining questions I had were: how did he pay for college? (previously brought up in another review) and why did he name him after Claude McKay? I'm not enough of a Harlem Renaissance scholar to draw a comparison beyond them both being young Black writers but would welcome additional insight. I did find the conclusion frustratingly inconclusive, the pace of the novel picks up in an adrenaline packed final few chapters and then abruptly ends when I had hoped we were getting more development of the star female character, Janice. I thought the portrayal of women in this novel (primarily Janice and his grandmother) could have used greater autonomy and deserved more time on the page or at least more curiosity from Claude about what was going on in their lives.
This was also a great Midwestern (and Chicago) novel, right down to Claude leaving Chicago for Mizzou (I laughed out loud at this detail but it made somewhat more sense when he revealed he wanted to focus on journalism but didn't get into Northwestern) because it's such a small classic Chicago thing. The book is full of moments like this, sly details and one-liners that reveal realities of Black Chicago in a few short bursts, "Mom was from the Highlands, a three-block chunk of South Shore reserved for black doctors, black politicians, black bankers, and black lawyers-all the rich people too dark-skinned for the suburbs, too poor to live downtown" (5). I also appreciated Claude's uniqueness as a protagonist for not being special, he's an anxious, average kid who seems to be depressed. His depression is more than warranted as he has suffered traumatic experiences, his parents abandoned him, he's shy and he's surrounded by violence in his neighborhood (South Shore) and school. He's also painfully awkward which always makes my heart melt (in a non romantic way, I'm just soft when it comes to awkwardness). I was surprised by how deeply moving I found his story to be even with the tongue0in-check hysterics. Many of the quirky characters are in Claude's chosen family. His grandma displays tough love time and again, Paul goes off the rails several times and takes Claude along with him but it's clear he is also undyingly devoted to Claude. There are so many quiet poignant moments between these three (and later on Janice) that are beautifully written and tributes to his strong support system. Aside from questions of family and identity this book has a lot to say about race whether it's Claude comparing his experiences in Chicago vs Columbia (MO and finding that you can't escape racism it just rears its head in different ways), or at a PWI vs his all Black neighborhood. And after the chapter about police brutality and the subsequent riots (which are fictional, I googled it because I was so baffled that I didn't remember this happening) I had to pause and take a break because it absolutely gutted me, you can feel the pandemonium and anger leaping off the page. It's frighteningly realistic right down to the gang violence and forced migration of Black Chicagoans. Although I wish more of the external forces causing Black Chicagoans to move away aside from gangs were explored, that's only part of the reason and focusing on that as the sole reason does us no favors with how non Chicagoans view our city.
EVERYWHERE YOU DON'T BELONG is an absurd coming of age/adulthood novel that centers around a quiet Black kid struggling to figure out his place in the world and overcome a series of traumas in his life that have shaped him while also navigating his first love and being away from his safety net. It also provides social commentary through a series of ridiculous scenarios and oddball characters who are there to do more than just be odd (although as I mentioned I wanted more from the two primary female characters). It's comedic but also dark, terrifyingly realistic and also somewhat fantastical. This is a quick novel to get through, told mostly in short chapters but packed with emotion that forces you to slow down and absorb, for all the humor it's not light so I wouldn't recommend it for when you're in the mood for something breezy. But if you want interesting literary fiction that goes beyond the standard boring white male and that you can finish in a day or two, then this is the book for you/that mood.
The opening line of this book might be one of my new favorites, "'If there's one thing wrong with people,' Paul always said, 'it's that no one remembers the shit that they should, and everyone remembers the shit that doesn't matter for shit'" (1). It's an opening salvo to a book that takes us on a wild ride and breaks our heart at the same time, full of eccentric characters and outrageous situations. The only remaining questions I had were: how did he pay for college? (previously brought up in another review) and why did he name him after Claude McKay? I'm not enough of a Harlem Renaissance scholar to draw a comparison beyond them both being young Black writers but would welcome additional insight. I did find the conclusion frustratingly inconclusive, the pace of the novel picks up in an adrenaline packed final few chapters and then abruptly ends when I had hoped we were getting more development of the star female character, Janice. I thought the portrayal of women in this novel (primarily Janice and his grandmother) could have used greater autonomy and deserved more time on the page or at least more curiosity from Claude about what was going on in their lives.
This was also a great Midwestern (and Chicago) novel, right down to Claude leaving Chicago for Mizzou (I laughed out loud at this detail but it made somewhat more sense when he revealed he wanted to focus on journalism but didn't get into Northwestern) because it's such a small classic Chicago thing. The book is full of moments like this, sly details and one-liners that reveal realities of Black Chicago in a few short bursts, "Mom was from the Highlands, a three-block chunk of South Shore reserved for black doctors, black politicians, black bankers, and black lawyers-all the rich people too dark-skinned for the suburbs, too poor to live downtown" (5). I also appreciated Claude's uniqueness as a protagonist for not being special, he's an anxious, average kid who seems to be depressed. His depression is more than warranted as he has suffered traumatic experiences, his parents abandoned him, he's shy and he's surrounded by violence in his neighborhood (South Shore) and school. He's also painfully awkward which always makes my heart melt (in a non romantic way, I'm just soft when it comes to awkwardness). I was surprised by how deeply moving I found his story to be even with the tongue0in-check hysterics. Many of the quirky characters are in Claude's chosen family. His grandma displays tough love time and again, Paul goes off the rails several times and takes Claude along with him but it's clear he is also undyingly devoted to Claude. There are so many quiet poignant moments between these three (and later on Janice) that are beautifully written and tributes to his strong support system. Aside from questions of family and identity this book has a lot to say about race whether it's Claude comparing his experiences in Chicago vs Columbia (MO and finding that you can't escape racism it just rears its head in different ways), or at a PWI vs his all Black neighborhood. And after the chapter about police brutality and the subsequent riots (which are fictional, I googled it because I was so baffled that I didn't remember this happening) I had to pause and take a break because it absolutely gutted me, you can feel the pandemonium and anger leaping off the page. It's frighteningly realistic right down to the gang violence and forced migration of Black Chicagoans. Although I wish more of the external forces causing Black Chicagoans to move away aside from gangs were explored, that's only part of the reason and focusing on that as the sole reason does us no favors with how non Chicagoans view our city.
EVERYWHERE YOU DON'T BELONG is an absurd coming of age/adulthood novel that centers around a quiet Black kid struggling to figure out his place in the world and overcome a series of traumas in his life that have shaped him while also navigating his first love and being away from his safety net. It also provides social commentary through a series of ridiculous scenarios and oddball characters who are there to do more than just be odd (although as I mentioned I wanted more from the two primary female characters). It's comedic but also dark, terrifyingly realistic and also somewhat fantastical. This is a quick novel to get through, told mostly in short chapters but packed with emotion that forces you to slow down and absorb, for all the humor it's not light so I wouldn't recommend it for when you're in the mood for something breezy. But if you want interesting literary fiction that goes beyond the standard boring white male and that you can finish in a day or two, then this is the book for you/that mood.
michellemm's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
jayfue619's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0