Reviews with content warning for Rape - Between the World and Me

Reviewing someone's lived experience feels weird, so I'll just say that this memoir does not sugarcoat anything. It's a short book, but the impact of his words will not soon fade.

Content Warnings

charleshasalibrary's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

tomriley's review

Go to review page

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

5.0

Coates' poetic style engages the reader in a way that makes challenging topics easily understood at a visceral level

Content Warnings

jcstokes95's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

I highly recommend listening to the audiobook; this feels so personal to the author, it is incredibly compelling to hear it delivered as if he is reading the letter to his son. I am not sure how effective it would be on the page in comparison, since it does have a very stream-of-consciousness feeling but in audio, it was well-executed. However, I am almost tempted to a buy a copy to have because the language here is so perfectly crafted even if the structure is sometimes a bit odd.

Coates writes in such a lyrical, captivating way that it's hard to imagine anyone could come away from this without having a visceral reaction. It is often heartbreaking, but in that specific way where it feels like a train keeps rolling its cars over you, again and again. Because so much of this is exactly what you would expect, just drawn more cruelly than you may have put together before. At times, Coates can come across as defeatist, but his picture of America makes you wonder how anyone could feel any other way. I feel this captures the uneasy footing that living in constant survival mode creates; And then Coates tries to pull himself out of that fight for survival and into a new world for his son's sake.

Whenever I write reviews of books about White supremacy, I like to note where I find myself feeling resistance. I find it troubling, often, to face head on inadequacies of schooling in this country and all they ways it can solidify boundaries of race. When I was an educator, I did it because I believed that education (while not a silver bullet) could be the beginning of equalizing our society. I knew while the system of my public school had failed me (in a poor, mainly minority district) that many of my teachers had poured their whole selves into our education in an attempt to save us from that very system. It's hard to hear that's not the experience of every person, even though I know on a logical level that it must be true. I saw its effect on my students but it's a hard job to do without allowing a little bit of a "dream" of a better world. I am curious to read more work on how Coates (or others) think the work of change can be approached when so much feels set against it.

All in all, there is so much to think about and face after reading this. It is a short read but will make you face the largest, most difficult conversation in our country today.

Content Warnings

nav26's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

This book was tough. I didn't necessarily learn something new, but Coates has a beautiful way of writing that really pulled me in. It broke my heart again and again, and yet it's a story of resilience. Should be required reading in my opinion!

Content Warnings

applesaucecreachur's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

4.75

This was an honest, necessary memoir told through the loving voice of a father to his son. Coates in his book puts into words all of the painful, and beautiful, and dangerous, and also incredibly mundane things that being Black can mean. He writes with urgency and with the voice of a man who has spent decades on his craft. Reading this intimate book felt almost invasive at times as Coates laid vulnerabilities bare for the child who likely still sees him as a superhero.

From this book, I have come to better understand that I am white (or whatever people see me as) at all times. I will never be Black and have my body, my sole physical connection to the world and those I love, made to look as a threat or of less value to those in power. It was humbling to read both as a white-passing person and as a human being.

Content Warnings

More...