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koenjanssen's review
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse
laila4343's review against another edition
4.0
Wow. I've somehow read these Angelou memoirs out of order (I don't think I realized for a long time that she even had more than the first one, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.) I wasn't prepared for how dark this one would be after reading some of the later ones. Angelou lived a hundred different lives, it seems. One would never suspect that the dignified poet who read at Clinton's inauguration had once been a prostitute. This memoir chronicles her late teenage years as she lives in San Francisco with her mother and tries to fashion a life for herself and her son. She desperately hungers for the affection of a man to "save" her and true to the norms of the time (1950's) enable her to become a housewife. In doing so she gets into some crazy situations and ends up endangering (and almost losing) her son. This was a quick read, fascinating, sometimes sad, but I'm glad I read it.
(Classics Club list, 3rd book)
(Classics Club list, 3rd book)
kamkanga's review against another edition
4.0
Continuing ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’, this Book is raw and eye-opening. I definitely love a privileged life. Warning: there is sex and prostitution and drugs.
omglily's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
pceboll's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
5.0
An absolute knock-out. You would not BELIEVE the life Ms. Angelou has lead-as one blurb on the back of my $3 paperback edition puts it, "Maya Angelou writes like an angel who has paid her dues in hell". Her reflections on past mistakes have so much humor and dignity that is so incredibly validating and I truly believe this should be required reading for all young women. I laughed out loud, physically cringed, and gawked at some of her choices, she is an insanely intelligent woman who is also young and prideful. "School of hard knocks" comes to mind. She is an absolute icon. A new favorite which has found me at the right time.
aquacat2's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use
megryanreally's review against another edition
5.0
Amazing account of how the descent into sin can shape and make us, but not define us. I envy Maya's courage and vulnerability in the midst of her perceiving herself as lacking in them. If still she can rise up from a past that's rooted in pain, then still I can rise.