Reviews - For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf

568 reviews for:

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

The poetry and pacing in this work is beautiful. The words flow and crash and dance with the characters. It's a bold reclamation of what it means to be a woman of color. That being said, in order to really understand this piece, you either have to be a Black woman or you have to have a strong understanding of Black feminism. Otherwise, a lot of the language and topics Ntozake Shange is using won't make sense or could be interpreted wrongly. That's not a bad thing, in my opinion; this play demands we listen to the persepctives and art of Black women, and the theatre Needs that today just as much as it did when Shange wrote this play.

dubiousdeeds's review against another edition

5.0

Absolutely harrowing

crystalisreading's review against another edition

4.0

Ntozake Shange's choreopoem is deceptively short. What seems like it would be an easy read is actually heavy to wrestle with, full of sadness and joy and scars not only personal, but also ancestral and cultural, written in a distinctive voice that seems to speak for black women across America. I picked this book up because I needed to read a book that is also a play for a reading prompt, and because this author was recommended to me by one of my friends. The first time I picked the book up, I read for awhile, and got distracted, as I frequently do with at least half the books I read. Today I picked it back up, while I have been concurrently reading This Will be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins, and suddenly much more of what Ntozake and the other women on stage with her were saying made sense to me. It echoed so much of Morgan Jerkin's heartfelt honesty about the struggles and grief she faced, but in the voice of poetry and choreography, echoing and adding a broader range of history and locations to the experience, to create a beautiful, if heart-wrenching overall picture of the African American female experience. I read it in one day, not wanting to set it down. I'd recommend this work if you are willing to take the time to listen and learn and appreciate it, for both its art form and its content. (Also the cover is just beautiful.)

lnspnlm's review against another edition

4.75

emotional reflective medium-paced

chinesa72's review against another edition

4.0

Beautiful poetry that encompasses the experience of all women, as well as focusing specifically on various aspects of the African American experience. A quick read.

crysarri's review against another edition

5.0

It has been almost ten years since I first read this book, and it's still one of the most important books I've ever read. It spoke to me as a coloured person and as a woman. The themes and emotions and struggles tackled in it universal, and there is something for every woman, minority or not. When I was 18, I carried a physical copy of this book everywhere I went because it had impacted me so violently. Now I carry its mark on my soul.

goldguardie's review against another edition

4.0

I read this in about an hour while sitting in a waiting room and as soon as I got home, went online to see if there was a production of it I could watch. (I ended up watching a college production from 2014)

I really appreciated the visuals I got while reading. It's a choreopoem, it's meant to be read aloud and acted out, and I really saw that and could imagine each woman telling her story.

I thought the vernacular writing was going to bother me, but it totally didn't.

I liked that each poem told a story. They ranged from sad to scary to sometimes even comical, and I can see why they've become so important and treasured to people who have read and loved them!