For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange

4.29 AVERAGE

mmccart1's review against another edition

5.0
dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
librarian_barbie's profile picture

librarian_barbie's review against another edition

5.0
Life changing. Amazing. I cannot sing the praises of this work enough.
siwe's profile picture

siwe's review against another edition

5.0
jesus fucking christ. 

auntiewhispers's review against another edition

4.0
Extremely powerful, I especially found strength in "Sorry" and "One"
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melodyseestrees's review against another edition

4.25
challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

eegray's review against another edition

5.0
adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

carlottaione's review against another edition

4.75
challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: N/A
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
ntozake shange's command of language is so powerful. there are lines in this that felt like they came up off of the page and tingled along my arms, dragging their fingertips along the thickness of my skin. shange writes to you specifically, knowing that her words are all grown up and will take on a life of their own. she is brilliant in her storytelling; each character feels real. i wish i could have seen this performed live. 

some of the scenarios in this felt so familiar it was almost frightening, but it solidified the realness of them. some were deceptively simple. they cut to the heart and they are sadly universal in their simplicity and devastating familiarity. i don't know that i have the words to encapsulate this choreopoem. read it. 

some of my favorite lines:
"& you promised me / you promised me ... / somebody/ anybody / sing a black girl's song / bring her out / to know herself / to know you ... / she doesn't know the sound / of her own voice / her infinite beauty" 

"sechita/ had learned to make allowances for the distortions/ but the heavy dust of the delta/ left a tinge of grit n darkness/ on every one of her dresses/ on her arms & her shoulders" 

"she wanted to be unforgettable / she wanted to be a memory / a wound           to every man / arrogant enough to want her / she waz the wrath / of women in windows / fingerin shades/ ol lace curtains / camoflagin despair & / stretch marks / so she glittered honestly" 

benjobuks's review against another edition

5.0
Everyone should read this play. Expresses the power and importance of black, female community as space for healing, joy and empowerment.
freshcinnamon's profile picture

freshcinnamon's review against another edition

2.0
I don't know if it's because this isn't my preferred style of poetry or what but I didn't like this book. The formatting was a little confusing. It was like my first experience reading Shakespeare: I read this dialect, knowing it's meant to be performed, but I had difficulty envisioning it. Was it the dialect? No. I understood it. Something about the book was a little scattered and all over the place, but there were parts that told an obvious story and parts that stuck out as meaningful to me.

Honestly, I read this because it was given to me as a gift. I had no interest it it nor in the movie adaption.

I will say that I think the movie did a good job of sorting out the confusion of this choreopoem...

(And I don't like Tyler Perry...)

psantic's review against another edition

4.0
challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: N/A
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes