Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Nigeria Jones by Ibi Zoboi

10 reviews

booktalkwithrae's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective tense 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? Yes

4.0

Wow, I finished this book in a day and it was such an easy read yet so insightful, thought-provoking, reflecting, and really makes you question a lot about yourself and society.

The main character, Nigeria Jones, is struggling to find herself as she lives in a world where her father is dead set on de mantling, white supremacist nation, and creating a black nation. She is homeschooled, doesn’t have a lot of experience outside of her small community and when she’s given the opportunity to expand her horizon, she is met with multiple blockades. 

There were so many times I wanted to highlight paragraph in this story. I really think this book needs to be in a lot of high schools as it really questions a lot what is wrong, what is right and what can we do as a society moving forward. There were a lot of interesting nuances and situations that the character faced that were difficult to navigate through.

All the characters were complex and interesting. There were a lot of informative thoughts and questions. My only gripe was towards the end of the book. Some of the things felt repetitive.

If you are a fan of The Hate U Give it Mondays Not Coming then this should be your next read! 

Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Slavery, and Racial slurs

Minor: Pregnancy, Abortion, Gun violence, Sexual content, Grief, and Homophobia

katie_helf96's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense 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

4.5

I give Zoboi credit for writing such a profoundly jackass of a dad that I was crying rage tears. He was just such a bulldozer over all the women in his life. As for race/racism, I understood where Nigeria is coming from, with her hate/mistrust of white people, especially with how she grew up in the movement and just knowing white people in general. I do think that the vast majority of white people are at least a little bit racist but there’s a sliding scale. Some white people are more racist than others, but a large amount of white people (especially younger ones) are trying to recognize and dismantle the inherent racism they were brought up with. Those people give me hope for the future. 

What I couldn’t stand was the misogyny/sexism from the dad. Friggin’ Keith. I did enjoy the ending though. It gave me some hope for Nigeria and her future/independence. This book needs more than just a couple paragraphs for a review. You could write a dissertation on the complexity of it. I didn’t even talk about Che/Chris. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Death of parent, Sexism, Misogyny, and Abandonment

tlaynejones's review

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Misogyny, and Racism

achay91's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse

Moderate: Racism, Drug use, Grief, Sexism, Sexual content, and Pregnancy

Minor: Death of parent, Sexual content, Abortion, Alcohol, Cultural appropriation, Medical content, and Police brutality

lettuce_read's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Grief, and Misogyny

Moderate: Death of parent and Homophobia

bujoxbooked's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective tense 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? Yes

4.0

Initial thoughts after finishing the book:

 
1) Baby girl really needed to go to therapy to have a safe place to be herself, talk about her mother's death and continuing to see her, and her life in the community
2) I expected a bigger reaction from Baba because she ran away with her stuff to Sage and KD's house and was just able to stay there for 3 weeks without issue? Like that makes no sense after the fight that he put up the whole time. I get that he was talking to his sister during that time, but still.
3) Baba sounded like such a horrible man from Nigeria's perspective and how he just kept sucking people into his society.
4) So if Nigeria's mom did not have Freedom because of her husband wanting an army of kids, she might have lived. Oooof I can't even imagine the resentment, but the author did not go down that path probably for good reason.
5)I like how the book ended with the 'next" generation after Nigeria (unsure how to spell her chosen name) taking over.

Overall, I'll go with 4 stars! After a while the book seemed to repeat the same thing over and over in regards to Nigeria's mom being a ghost, Nigeria's father being against her wanting to go to Philly Friends school.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Homophobia, and Misogyny

Minor: Abortion and Cultural appropriation

psistillreadyou's review against another edition

challenging 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Drug use, Death of parent, Homophobia, Misogyny, Mental illness, Abortion, and Alcohol

Minor: Pregnancy

bookcaptivated's review

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Grief, and Sexism

Moderate: Racism, Abandonment, Death of parent, Alcohol, Homophobia, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cultural appropriation, Medical content, Sexual content, Abortion, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Blood, Classism, and Colonisation

zombiezami's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

In a lot of ways, I feel like this book was written for me. I notice a lot of similarities between myself and the protagonist. I thought the narrative had a lot of heart and the author did a good job of communicating Nigeria's internal struggle. 

One thing I didn't love was

the twist at the end with the protagonist's mother being dead the whole time

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Racism, Blood, Grief, Sexism, Misogyny, Pregnancy, and Death

Moderate: Medical trauma, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Sexual content, Slavery, Abandonment, Classism, Medical content, Colonisation, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Homophobia, Sexual harassment, Abortion, Miscarriage, Vomit, Cultural appropriation, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, and Bullying

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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

4.0

As usual, Zoboi has created a thought-provoking story that will stay with you when you finish it. It's about race, it's about questioning how you were raised, and it's about finding your own voice. I will be honest, this is tagged as historical fiction in a few places, so I spent a good portion of the beginning trying to figure out the time period of this book. As far as I can tell, it seems to be present day? Unless anyone has any other insight on that!

Anyway, Nigeria's story is messy, she's learning new things about herself and her family and trying to act on her mother's wishes despite what her father wants for her. There is a twist towards the end that I did see coming, but I think it's still impactful despite that. There's just a lot of a meat to this story, and it's one that is still relevant to the current United States.

Other than the timeline issue, I did enjoy listening to this and think it will get some buzz when it comes time for awards season!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Pregnancy

Minor: Alcohol