Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - In Every Mirror She's Black

3 African and African American women struggle to find a place for themselves in the insular homogenous culture of Sweden. Calls into question the idealized Nordic paradise: the “happiest place in the world” may not be so happy for those of darker hue.

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ninabest's review

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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pisces1_1318's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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lili_geek's review

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emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book follows three black women from different backgrounds who are all impacted by the same man. Three out of four characters were incredibly unlikeable.

The meat of the book had some good story development, where one woman was finding her niche while trying the cope with the systemic racism surrounding her, one woman drowning in isolation due to outright racism she has to experience, and one woman who was constantly trying to make connections in the mist of all of her trauma. But the ending was simultaneously sad and frustrating, and I can’t say that I found it was a good ending. Only one character did my heart go out to.

I also did not like the fact that the main ‘villain’ was coded as ASD. The representation was poor and not accurate. To me it read like someone went to webmd- found the main symptoms of ASD then put all of it in one character.

Overall, the book was good enough for me to maintain interest to want to finish the book, but I would not recommend it to anyone. I felt like it had a lot of promise, but I was disappointed in the character decisions (not the last characters decision, that broke my heart) in the beginning and ending of the book.

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onemorepagecrew's review

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challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Told through the perspectives of three Black women whose lives intersect in Sweden, this novel gives light to racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism that is amplified in the white-dominated society. The author’s personal website indicates she is “Born in Nigeria. Educated in the United States. Based in Sweden.” and perspectives from all three countries are reflected in the story.

The three women in the story have different reasons for being in Sweden, however they all intersect at a global marketing firm in Stockholm run by a wealthy man called Jonny. Kemi is recruited to for an executive position at the marketing firm and relocates from the U.S., Brittany-Rae is a model and flight attendant who meets Jonny on a flight and moves from the U.S. to be with him, and Muna is a Somali refugee who is working in a janitorial position at the marketing firm.

I typically enjoy a multi-perspective story with a thread in common and generally I enjoyed this novel, however the fast-pace for seemingly major life decisions left me a little dizzy at times. Kemi wanted to shake up her career and love life and took a leap by moving to Sweden and faced internal conflict when the job and culture wasn’t what she expected. Muna’s story felt disjointed from the rest of the novel and I could have used much more backstory on her family, her roommates, and her inner monologue. Brittany-Rae… I had the most trouble connecting to her. I could not understand her pull to Jonny and there wasn’t enough time to establish her mindset and build that understanding for the reader. So many times, I was thinking “whhhhhy are you with this guy?” and with her family asking the same questions it was hard to get behind. Jonny’s arc of “eccentric” to autism spectrum disorder was easy to see coming, but having read several novels with characters with autism spectrum disorder this one lacked a bit of depth.

Overall, this was a quick read and one I did like. If each character had their own book with more depth, I would read each one. The fly-by look at their lives was intriguing and left me wishing for more.

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jahodge714's review against another edition

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emotional 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

4.0

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now_booking's review

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The thing is I liked this book and what it was trying to accomplish. I think it did a really good job at capturing the micro (and macro) aggressions Black women face living in a white, “Western” society where they are othered, and it did so through the perspectives of three very different women. Kemi is a marketing guru on the rise in corporate America who’s head-hunted to direct diversity and inclusion in marketing at a top Swedish firm, Brittany is a flight attendant, former model and general grown up sugar baby never quite recovered from a past trauma, and Muna is a refugee from Somalia who has lost everyone she’s ever loved, trying to build a life for herself in Sweden.. These three women’s diverse experiences, I believe, are intended to reflect the many different experience of being Black and female intersectionally in the “West,” where no matter your social class, social network or experience, there is a sort of discrimination and even dehumanization that takes place where you’re always seen as other and not quite deserving of respect and equal humanity. Specifically for these 3 women as immigrants/expats in Sweden, Black Womanhood in this context is lonely, isolating, disrespected, as gaslit to heck and back.

I found the author’s writing to be engaging and interesting. The thing is that I feel like this book may have tried to accomplish too much in discussing all the different means through which Black women experienced discrimination and so thematically it had perhaps too much ground to cover. Because of this, I think there was not enough time to build to an ending, the resolutions felt rushed and it didn’t come together for me. The first issue for me was the story trajectories for the three women- in the end there was no proper convergence- it felt like 3 very different projects about many very different issues (corporate discrimination and sexualisation, trauma recovery and autism, and issues for refugees and new arrivals in supposedly welcoming Sweden but then also radicalization and extremism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, fatphobia, gaslighting, domestic abuse, sexual violence). There were too many themes and moreover I would have liked to see more integration of the characters across the different plots- what existed felt very last minute. Chronologically, it took 2 years for Kemi and Brittany to connect and then it’s never quite clear why their relationship was what it was- was it due to their personalities, is it about them being Black women, it just seemed very out of character especially for Kemi to be the way she was. Furthermore, very interesting character dynamics would frequently be set up with supporting characters in a scene, only to never come up again- for example Kemi with Tobias’s sister, or Brittany and Antonia, the bits about multiracialism with Malcolm and Tobias- it’s like things were touched on that could have revealed something deeper about the characters but then without exploring that depth, we were rushed on to another theme or another event so that the net was cast wide but it didn’t have a chance to sink deep. A bit more integration may have helped us learn a bit more about the lead characters and even the supporting ones. The character trajectories were also clashing. They sometimes went through personality transplants (e.g. Antonia, Kemi from time to time) and acted completely out of character, OR they stagnated and by the end remained to me mostly static and they ended up in the knowledge and positions they already had at the beginning which kind of made me wonder the point at the end- Kemi gets a rushed realization at the end, Brittany ends up pretty much where she started in terms of power and agency, and Muna- the main sympathetic character in this is also more or less stagnant, if you can call it that. I think this book felt a little rushed at the end and the resolution with Muna felt to me a little too like a manipulative device for shock value like with Ahmed or Yasmeen or Khadijah- I mean I understood it and it made sense in a full circle way, but I also felt a little manipulated because of precedent about the fate of refugees and immigrants especially those who were Muslim.

One issue people may bring up is the treatment of ASD, the author does bring it up in a note at the back but if you’re at all sensitive to having a person’s toxic traits be linked to their neurodiversity, consider if this is for you. Themes of ableism also exist in this character’s experience.

I think what the author did well was write deeply flawed characters that were also relatable in the ways that most of us are self-saboteurs in some way. We’re prone to bad decisions and wrong choices and being influenced out of our own happiness. We deny the obvious red flags and consider other people’s opinions when we shouldn’t and don’t listen to good advice when we should. We are judged and discriminated against but sometimes judge and discriminate against others. The author in writing these characters teases out a lot of nuances around racism and intersectional lived experience for Black women in Sweden.

Overall, I liked this. It felt very realistic and authentic, even when I rolled my eyes at their decisions, I thought the author did a great job writing these people. I wish this had narrowed its thematic scope a bit to develop more deeply some of the nuances and tidbits dropped along the way in the plot. I’m glad I read this and highly recommend if you’re looking for a book about race set in what is often idealized Scandinavia, with messy main characters and ALL the drama. Beware that this is potentially a very triggering book so approach with caution.

Many thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark for the advanced copy!

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librarybookscene's review

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adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

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