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4.52 AVERAGE
4.52 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
A book that I put down and came back to.
This memoir is affecting and visceral, and Safiya and her family seemed to enter the room wherever I was ready. My awe is in her storytelling skill and its vulnerability at telling her story, while still reconciling with her father, her culture, her religion, and herself, and leaving room for its potential. Nothing is absolute. My heart is wrenched at descriptions of her as a child, of the familiar loneliness in her school and at home, of her waiting for her life “to begin.” This is one long poem. It captures of the complexity of loving your parents and those who have hurt you, of seeking to understand them, and still giving them room to grow and make right.
dark
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Recommendations for this book followed me around for months, and I missed her by a few hours when she was doing a reading in Seattle where I was on vacation but I’m glad I finally got to read it. I read the first third with interest but not joy, it felt like we were bearing witness to her trauma and I dreaded each time I picked it up. But her dedication to and gift for poetry is miraculous, uplifting, and comforting, and I drank up the rest eagerly. Seeing Ms. Sinclair’s current-day flair for fashion is the icing on the cake for her recent success. I might actually buy a book of poetry after this!
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
A really good memoir. This one reminded me a lot of Educated. Very well written, the language was flowy and descriptive, which makes sense given her background in poetry. It was a little slow at parts, though then the end felt rushed. I would have like to know more about where her siblings ended up and her relationship will all of them, not just her dad. Otherwise, not much to add, it was an interesting and pretty engaging read.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
fast-paced