Reviews

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

neelamreadsalot's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

lynecia's review against another edition

4.0

Let me gather my thoughts...brb

tball333's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

giak13's review against another edition

5.0

While this book was very saddening, I think it's extremely necessary for everyone to read. It's such an important topic that everyone should be concerned with. This book does a great job bringing this issue to light and explaining it in a way that everyone can understand and empathize with. I enjoyed that the book was separated into six sections, long chapters are usually difficult to engage with and get through, but this wasn't the case for this book. Michelle Alexander did such an amazing job explaining the past, present and future involved with racism, slavery, and mass incarceration. I don't usually enjoy reading nonfiction, historical books, but this one really spoke to me and I was able to learn so much throughout the entire book. Sometimes the topics that are difficult to listen to are the most important to learn about. I also appreciated that this book didn't ever come across as an attack on other races, even though it had every right to do so. It genuinely seems that Michelle is only in the interest of educating the audience, not pointing blame.

wahooemma's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

Wowowowwww where to even begin? Took me about 2 months to read because I’d have to take breaks because of heavy content, sort of intense intellectual prodding at times. So well written and thought provoking! A very important read for everyone, especially those interested in racial histories, bias, mass incarceration, justice, etc. very hard to sum up or review the book because it was so impactful  

piperleger's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

rants_n_reads's review

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

tophat8855's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative medium-paced

5.0

This is really a very good book. I read the 10th anniversary edition and its forward. The forward is really important and highly recommended. I think one aspect of the prison system that is overlooked in this book is its affect on the physical health of the people in prison. Lack of access to good care leaves people at a huge disadvantage once they are out. This was published right before the Covid pandemic hit, so she wouldn’t know how devastating a pandemic would be on the people in a prison, how many people would die because they are not given appropriate housing for human beings.

There is so much good stuff in here though, and she doesn’t pull punches on making who is responsible for the war on drugs and how each President since has failed to truly end it or fix it.

lisakerd's review against another edition

2.0

Michelle Alexander did an excellent job backing her compelling case with research and explanation. Although I agree with her statements, the book quickly became redundant and was a sludge to get through.

pages_and_papercrafts's review against another edition

The preface to the 10th anniversary was very powerful and a testament of so much of mass incarceration that has changed (good and bad). This entire book was powerful. It took me a while to finish, I even contemplated DNFing but decided to come back to it. It read similar to a textbook-a lot of statistics, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this will be required reading in high school soon. (I do not rate non-fiction or memoirs)