Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

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

29 reviews

purplelake's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

5.0

Wow. Just wow. Born a Crime might be the best book I’ve read in the last couple years.
While novel centers around Noah’s childhood in South Africa, he and his mother are a binary star system, revolving around each other. The amount of respect Noah has for his mother, for all her strengths and weaknesses, charms and faults, is apparent in every word. And Noah’s mother is truly an incredible woman, providing wisdom and opportunity even during apartheid.
The story unfolds through witty vignettes, weaving the timeline back and forth, both non-sequential and somehow the way Noah’s tale is best told. Noah’s candid and irreverent voice is what truly puts this book over the top, guiding his audience through the race struggle of post-apartheid South Africa with grace and humor.
It comes as no surprise that Born a Crime is a comedic masterpiece, but it is the heart of the novel that makes it worth the read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Cursing, Excrement, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Misogyny, Pregnancy, and Sexism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Drug abuse, Drug use, Medical content, and Suicide

ekmook's review against another edition

funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Alcoholism, Addiction, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, and Violence

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

befreckledbookworm's review against another edition

emotional funny inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Wow.
Just wow.
This book was absolutely amazing.
I’m not a huge nonfiction reader, but I love Trevor’s comedy specials and I’d heard good things about his book, so I picked it up from my school library. 
He’s a mama’s boy, but not in the way where he’s thirty-something and living in his mom’s basement. Their relationship is like Lorelai and Rory from Gilmore Girls, kind of. They fight and yell at each other, but in the end, they love each other and can always make each other laugh. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Gun violence, Medical content, Physical abuse, Police brutality, and Racism

adoras's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Excrement, Gun violence, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Vomit, and Xenophobia

Minor: Antisemitism, Drug use, and Rape

alenert's review against another edition

challenging funny informative inspiring reflective

4.5

Highly highly recommend on audio. I had the physical copy of this, but had heard such great things about the narration—particularly how Noah seamlessly flips between accents and dialects throughout the story—that I decided to listen instead, and I think it really adds to the experience. In addition to this being both moving and funny, I knew next to nothing about South African history and apartheid and feel like I really learned from it as well. 

Update to say the one piece of this book that didn’t sit well with me was the discussion of the Holocaust.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racism, and Slavery

Moderate: Alcoholism and Physical abuse

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Excrement, Gun violence, and Misogyny

emakay's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cursing, Excrement, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Slavery

shannonxvx's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Racism, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Blood, and Cursing

Minor: Excrement, Animal death, and Antisemitism

grei's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

So, so worth anyone's time if you can read it. Even if you don't get the audiobook you can hear him telling the story in your head.

I don't know a better way to describe this book, it is absolutely an amazing read that defies categorization, other than to say it is the story of Trevor Noah growing up as the son of a black mother and white father during apartheid, when it was illegal to have such a child.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Gun violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Medical content, Misogyny, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, and Xenophobia

Minor: Blood, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Forced institutionalization, Slavery, and Violence

If you want to skip the part about excrement, once Trevor starts talking about needing to go to the bathroom just skip to the end of the chapter. The last few paragraphs provide enough context and a good punchline for you to skip all the graphic detail and embarrassment of it.