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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
I'd give this 2.5 stars. It wasn't as funny as I expected and I was a little disappointed. However, Issa Rae does cover a lot of topics that I can relate to and that my friends and I talk about all the time. I was turned off by her occasional name dropping and she mentioned growing up in tony Potomac, Maryland more times than were necessary. (Just saying "Maryland" would have sufficed after the first couple of mentions.) I'll still enjoy Issa on YouTube but probably wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.
I'll listen to Issa Rae read the phone book, but this didn't do it for me. The disjointed timeline didn't seem to serve any thematic point and I don't enjoy hearing someone diss their weight so much. Also, some parts were strangely racist, right?
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
funny
inspiring
fast-paced
What does a white girl from NC have in common with an Awkward Black Girl? More than you might think. As Bono says, "I'm white, pink, and rosy, but I've got soul."
Although I gave this book 4 stars, my actual rating is closer to 3.5 or 3.75. I was disappointed by the lack of laugh-out-loud moments. In fact, for me there was only one, involving a cockroach, an airplane, and white harem pants. Otherwise, the book was mildly amusing, but no other gut-busting occurred, which I had anticipated.
I spent most of my reading mentally nodding along to the revelations Rae made, as well as being somewhat taken aback at the parallels of our younger lives. I found most of her writing to be insightful, and despite the obvious exception of race, universal.
Although she mentions being black a lot, and goes so far as to give readers a guide to the "types" of black people, Rae doesn't focus on race in the way one might expect from the title. In fact, she brings up an issue I've wondered about myself: Don't black people who talk about race ALL THE TIME get tired of talking about it? The same goes for most minorities, and as someone with a disability, I drew many parallels with Rae's desire to not have to focus so entirely on race, to not feel like she must always be having THAT conversation.
Although I gave this book 4 stars, my actual rating is closer to 3.5 or 3.75. I was disappointed by the lack of laugh-out-loud moments. In fact, for me there was only one, involving a cockroach, an airplane, and white harem pants. Otherwise, the book was mildly amusing, but no other gut-busting occurred, which I had anticipated.
I spent most of my reading mentally nodding along to the revelations Rae made, as well as being somewhat taken aback at the parallels of our younger lives. I found most of her writing to be insightful, and despite the obvious exception of race, universal.
Although she mentions being black a lot, and goes so far as to give readers a guide to the "types" of black people, Rae doesn't focus on race in the way one might expect from the title. In fact, she brings up an issue I've wondered about myself: Don't black people who talk about race ALL THE TIME get tired of talking about it? The same goes for most minorities, and as someone with a disability, I drew many parallels with Rae's desire to not have to focus so entirely on race, to not feel like she must always be having THAT conversation.
Read this review and others on my blog: The Library Princess
**This review is based on an ARC from Netgalley, it releases on 2/10/15.
I originally requested this title because a)it has a really fun cover, and b)the synopsis on Netgalley drew me in because it sounded very entertaining. After I was approved and when I knew it was coming close to time to actually read the title, I watched a few videos from Issa Rae’s YouTube channel and knew I had to make sure to get to this one in my To-Be-Read pile. I was not disappointed. If you have followed me to this point, it is pretty obvious that I am not a huge fan of nonfiction titles, but I can handle memoirs most of the time. This was written as somewhat of a guide, mixed with Issa’s own experiences and life stories. The sections that were considered an Awkward Black Girl guide had me cracking up, as they described different kinds of black people, different kinds of coworkers, and so on; all were pretty spot-on. The sections that were written about Issa’s life were also rather entertaining. Issa moved around a lot as a child and has many hilarious stories to tell from her experiences with friendship and family….though, I have to admit, it was a bit confusing at times because the stories did jump back and forth over time quite a bit, so I was a little lost. There were several times during the reading of this title that I caught myself laughing out loud, and that is always an indication of a good book to me! If you have not heard of Issa Rae, look her up on YouTube and then grab this book for some laughs. I will be purchasing for my library and recommending to students, especially for their required nonfiction book reports. Might as well make it fun!
My rating: 4/5
**This review is based on an ARC from Netgalley, it releases on 2/10/15.
I originally requested this title because a)it has a really fun cover, and b)the synopsis on Netgalley drew me in because it sounded very entertaining. After I was approved and when I knew it was coming close to time to actually read the title, I watched a few videos from Issa Rae’s YouTube channel and knew I had to make sure to get to this one in my To-Be-Read pile. I was not disappointed. If you have followed me to this point, it is pretty obvious that I am not a huge fan of nonfiction titles, but I can handle memoirs most of the time. This was written as somewhat of a guide, mixed with Issa’s own experiences and life stories. The sections that were considered an Awkward Black Girl guide had me cracking up, as they described different kinds of black people, different kinds of coworkers, and so on; all were pretty spot-on. The sections that were written about Issa’s life were also rather entertaining. Issa moved around a lot as a child and has many hilarious stories to tell from her experiences with friendship and family….though, I have to admit, it was a bit confusing at times because the stories did jump back and forth over time quite a bit, so I was a little lost. There were several times during the reading of this title that I caught myself laughing out loud, and that is always an indication of a good book to me! If you have not heard of Issa Rae, look her up on YouTube and then grab this book for some laughs. I will be purchasing for my library and recommending to students, especially for their required nonfiction book reports. Might as well make it fun!
My rating: 4/5
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
A huge fan of Insecure, I was super excited to read this memoir by Issa Rae. It was very much her brand of humor, which I love, though it was kind of just a collection of random awkward stories. Totally fine and I was happy to read those, but I would've loved if there was a little more structure to it.