Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

24 reviews

georgie_mb's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

Binged this in a morning, who even am I 😂

Beautiful, poignant, and heartbreaking. Maya’s story is incredible and you truly root for her every step of the way. Highly recommend the BBC audiobook of this, as they bring it to life as part audiobook, part radio play.

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tetedump's review against another edition

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inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.25

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a_bloom's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

It took a little while for me to get used to the writing and actually interested in the story, but within a hundred pages it REALLY captured my attention. Her writing is beautiful and descriptive and painfully aware of how her younger self perceived the situation of her birth and life. However, the last few chapters come off awkward as it strays from the usual pacing, but considering she had more autobots it makes sense.

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amandas_bookshelf's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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kemrick19's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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michaelion's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.25

One thing that makes it hard to get through nonfiction is that it is often pure and objective fact, nothing but hard statements and the evidence to back it up, but Angelou writes in a way that doesn't just feel the way a memoir / autobiography would, like someone telling their life story, but in a way that is colorful and bright and fluid like fiction usually is. Well, good fiction at least.

And on a personal note a lot of moments hit a little tew close to home. I'm not gonna list them but not me and Miss Dr Angelou living the same life having the same experiences feeling the same feelings!!! I had to put the book down a couple times and cover my face!!!

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blainereads's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

4.0

This is kind of tough as I’m reading it today, knowing full well that it changed the American literary canon and profoundly contributed to how we conceptualize race and identity in the United States—and I can easily see why, if considering it in the context of the 1960s/70s when it was initially published.

Today, it falls a little bit flat and/or dry (though the trauma is, as it always will be, horrific); the instances of racism (towards Latinos and Asians) and implied homophobia, though understandable for the period, are still a bummer; and it is certainly not the most engaging memoir I’ve ever read, but I know that those incredibly compelling memoirs (often from marginzaled authors) only exist because of this one, so I suppose for that alone, it deserves at least four stars.

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