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4.46 AVERAGE
4.46 AVERAGE
When I first got this book in the mail and flipped through it, I must confess that something about the slightly larger-than-average font led me to drastically underestimate what the book had to offer. While I'm not proud of this assumption, it did make actually reading the book a consistently pleasant and incredibly impressive surprise. This was terrific!
Perez writes with an easy, inviting candor that's like, actually authentic rather than an imitation of that that's trying too hard (honestly a rare feat to pull off I'd say) and it made reading the book fly by. With that said, there is a serious depth of practical ministerial knowledge, biblical exegesis, and theological exploration here that I found really rich and exciting. Again, because of the font and the fact that it was marketed more as a spiritual memoir, I wasn't expecting the ways that this book seriously stimulated my mind as well as it stirred my heart. Perez honestly seems like the whole package here: theologically robust without being heady, culturally aware and justice oriented without being exclusive or pretentious, warm and relational without being shallow, direct and prophetic without being self-righteous.
For being a relatively short book, I really admired the scope that's covered. I found the first two main chapters the strongest, and equally appreciated the attention he gave to pretty distinct demographics in them. The first includes some phenomenal practical advice for white middle class people relocating to predominantly POC and economically under-resourced neighborhoods (his exploration of the difference between a resident and a neighbor is especially powerful). The second includes expansive reflections around holding a "remezcla" or "in-between" cultural identity as a Latino, and more particularly an immigrant or first generation American. And what I really appreciated about the latter was that Perez made no excuses about writing solely to that audience; it was clear throughout that he wasn't concerned with disenfranchising white readers (for example, he frequently embeds Spanish phrases and colloquialisms without offering an in-text translation). Those are the seemingly minor touches that helped to make this feel so real –– in a book that's unabashedly celebrating his unique neighborhood (Washington Heights, a predominantly Latino and especially Dominican neighborhood of NYC) and inviting others to do the same in their urban context, why would he cater to anyone else?
Perez writes with an easy, inviting candor that's like, actually authentic rather than an imitation of that that's trying too hard (honestly a rare feat to pull off I'd say) and it made reading the book fly by. With that said, there is a serious depth of practical ministerial knowledge, biblical exegesis, and theological exploration here that I found really rich and exciting. Again, because of the font and the fact that it was marketed more as a spiritual memoir, I wasn't expecting the ways that this book seriously stimulated my mind as well as it stirred my heart. Perez honestly seems like the whole package here: theologically robust without being heady, culturally aware and justice oriented without being exclusive or pretentious, warm and relational without being shallow, direct and prophetic without being self-righteous.
For being a relatively short book, I really admired the scope that's covered. I found the first two main chapters the strongest, and equally appreciated the attention he gave to pretty distinct demographics in them. The first includes some phenomenal practical advice for white middle class people relocating to predominantly POC and economically under-resourced neighborhoods (his exploration of the difference between a resident and a neighbor is especially powerful). The second includes expansive reflections around holding a "remezcla" or "in-between" cultural identity as a Latino, and more particularly an immigrant or first generation American. And what I really appreciated about the latter was that Perez made no excuses about writing solely to that audience; it was clear throughout that he wasn't concerned with disenfranchising white readers (for example, he frequently embeds Spanish phrases and colloquialisms without offering an in-text translation). Those are the seemingly minor touches that helped to make this feel so real –– in a book that's unabashedly celebrating his unique neighborhood (Washington Heights, a predominantly Latino and especially Dominican neighborhood of NYC) and inviting others to do the same in their urban context, why would he cater to anyone else?