Reviews

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD. Aside from feeling ashamed at my ignorance of the struggles depicted in this book, I also found myself slipping into disbelief multiple times after realising that the events described were real and not imaginary. In some distant part of my mind I am aware of racism and the prejudice and discrimination that follows it but I'm lucky enough not to come across it too often in my day-to-day life. Reading this book has completely changed my viewpoint. It has made me realise that not coming across racism myself does not mean that I am off the hook. It is not an excuse to keep quiet. While there are people suffering for something beyond their control, or something very much in their control, we have a responsibility to stand with them and fight alongside them. That epiphany hit me a few pages in, when I realised that the world Maya was describing was real (thankfully real a long time ago, but still real once upon a time). It shouldn't have been - it should have been the opening of a novel, the first paragraphs designed to make plain the injustice that would be rectified by the final pages. Behaviour like that should not have been and should not be acceptable. Love thy neighbour is not a suggestion people, and that's coming from an atheist. The world is full of spite and hate and greed and pride but it's also got some good stuff: love, kindness, selflessness, faith, family and community. Angelou demonstrates that better than anyone. The revival in the cloth tent shows the melding of age, religion and opinion. All those people come together for a shared purpose - they set aside their differences to acknowledge something infinitely more important. When Maya is raped by her mother's lover, we're dragged into the depths of depravity with her but she unearths us. Her mother's and brother's love and the support she receives from her family and her community unearths us. Angelou doesn't boast or big herself up on a single page but we still come to realise how truly extraordinary she is. Her unrelenting honesty and her brutal exposure of her deepest, most private thoughts and memories makes it impossible for a reader to feel anything but love, admiration and a burning desire to do good. When she gets a job working on the train, the first Negro to do so, I couldn't believe it. Her determination and her stubbornness were honestly like something from a novel. You rarely meet someone that pure and that confident in real life. There were things I didn't like in the biography - moments that seemed orchestrated or random, slips into imagery that was too ambiguous and conclusive phrases at the end of chapters that seemed to impart wisdom. I don't like books being summarised while I read. The rest, however, is completely irrelevant. I can't judge this book by the standards I judge others because it's not a story. It's a life. Realisations come to us when we least expect it, we can never predict what's going happen and we act in the moment because life is for living, not for overthinking. And if I'm being completely honest, I don't believe I have a right to judge Angelou or her story. She's done more for this world than I have.

betag1013's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

crystalllite's review against another edition

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5.0

I read most of this book in a bar on my phone. Guys kept asking me what I was reading and then making excuses to change the subject when I told them. Life rule: If a dude is scared off by Miss Angelou, don’t f*ck him.

oopsie_casey's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

sharkledmangle's review against another edition

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5.0

i wish i had read this as a teenager.

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