Reviews tagging 'Antisemitism'

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

22 reviews

applesaucecreachur's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

Not many books have the power to make me grin openly, laugh out loud, or choke/tear up. This one did. Trevor Noah's coming-of-age love letter to his mother jumped from story to story of his youth. Some were amusing, some were absurd, and others were downright tragic. All of them, though, masterfully combined comedy with reflection and made cultural and political South African concepts easy for a foreign reader to understand. The cast of characters is vibrant and made three-dimensional with only a few well-thought-out phrases. I wish it had not taken me so long to read this book; I feel that I am a more learned person now, and appreciate my own family all the more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Gun violence

Moderate: Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Blood, and Gore

Minor: Animal cruelty and Antisemitism

ruthiethetoothie's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Domestic abuse, and Gun violence

Moderate: Racial slurs, Xenophobia, and Death of parent

Minor: Antisemitism

delaneysue's review against another edition

emotional funny informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, Hate crime, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Excrement, Colonisation, Classism, and Alcoholism

Minor: Rape, Racial slurs, Slavery, Suicide, and Antisemitism

lectrixnoctis's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

Trevor Noah's strange path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with an illegal act: his birth. Trevor happened to be born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother when such a union was criminal by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents' recklessness, Trevor was kept frequently indoors for the most prime years of his life, obliged by the extreme and often irrational measures his mother took to hide him from a state that could, at any moment, take him away. Eventually liberated by the end of South Africa's tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living fully and freely and embracing the chances won by a centuries-long conflict.

"Born a Crime" is the tale of a prankish young boy who grows into a wandering young man as he strives to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to live in. Additionally, it is the story of that young man's connection with his fearless, rebellious, and highly religious mother—his teammate, a woman settled to save her son from the circle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would eventually threaten her own life.

The narrative was written in the first-person point of view by the author himself, and it was said in the past in South Africa.

Moreover, the motives of this book, in particular about racism and how apartheid, one of the worst crimes committed in South Africa, has affected the country and its people, although the system never truly worked at all. By casting black people away from white people and having no room for mixed children, who by law did not exist. I am a massive advocate for constantly educating yourself, especially racism, even more, if you are white. For me, a woman who has never lived outside of Germany and is broad, it is important to recognise my privilege and think about the system my ancestors have created and how I stop thinking that favours the system and even breaking out of it.

Not to forget to mention the love of Noah's mother was impeccable, and although I disagreed with her tough love method, I know it came from the heart, and I know she only wanted to do the best for him, which she enviably did. I loved reading about the relationship between the author and his mother throughout his whole childhood and his early 20s. Although I do not know these people personally, I felt connected with them because of the writing style, which hit me very hard and was witty at the same time.

A friend bought this as a gift for my 19th birthday, and I cannot be happier to read this book finally. I did not imagine it to hit that hard but in the best way possible. I laughed out loud because of it, and I cried at the end of the book. I did not think that autobiographies could make you feel something this deep like this one does. I highly recommend this book to anyone. You're probably going to cry, but you will love this book, and it will give you extreme joy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Colonisation, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Moderate: Antisemitism, Child abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

gracechihoski's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

1.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism

breadwitchery's review against another edition

emotional funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Animal death, Police brutality, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: War, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Death, Violence, Misogyny, Excrement, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Blood, Slavery, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Cursing, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Genocide, Antisemitism, and Rape

emcatbee's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Rape, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, and Racism

smithreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, and Child abuse

Moderate: Sexism, Antisemitism, and Alcoholism

Minor: Bullying

kathrynhannah's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Racism

Moderate: Rape and Antisemitism

yavin_iv's review against another edition

Got about 2/3 through. Mostly a fine introduction to life in South Africa during/right after apartheid but there's a story around that 2/3 mark where like--(cw antisemitism)

after Trevor explains that Black people in South Africa mostly understood Hitler as one of history's many strongmen, which led to people picking "Hitler" as their sons' European name, he tells a story about how he DJ'd at a Jewish school with his dance hype friend of that name he and the 90s/00s dance chant of "go [name]! go [name]!" for said friend, and a MASSIVE misunderstanding ensued. Trevor and his friend thought the Jewish people were upset about sexualized dances and were being racist, and like doubled down on the chant before cursing them out and leaving. The white Jewish people did go into "you people" territory in confronting them, but it was a bad situation all around between two marginalized groups of people who didn't understand each other or how they were each inflicting hurt. Most of the stories Trevor tells in this book are done so in a humorous light, but this one is just--it's more sad than anything!

I found the attempted humorous framing of this story to be super distasteful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Excrement, and Animal death

Moderate: Antisemitism, Violence, Fatphobia, Gun violence, and Alcoholism