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A review by liketheday
What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage
3.0
"An Oprah book club selection" was one of the Read Harder challenges this year, and I wasn't sure what I was going to read because nothing on the abridged list that used to be on Oprah's site (it has since been updated to be complete) looked interesting. I found this book in passing on a completely different list of books and noticed the little Oprah logo in the corner and went, aha!
This is an interesting little book and sort of a time capsule of 1997 when it was written. I feel like it would have been really affecting and groundbreaking had I read it 20 years ago, except not really because I would have been a little too young for it but you know what I mean, but now it's a little more... quaint?
That's not to say it's not good. It has an interesting perspective on AIDS, teen sexuality, poverty, racism, religion, drug addiction -- all the controversial issues you can cram into a pretty short book without going overboard, and it does cram them in really well. It also has a cute romance subplot and a bit of a meditation on place. It's fun and a little suspenseful and it has some things to say that still need to be heard in 2018, so it's worth it to push past the weirder late-90s bits to get to them.
This is an interesting little book and sort of a time capsule of 1997 when it was written. I feel like it would have been really affecting and groundbreaking had I read it 20 years ago, except not really because I would have been a little too young for it but you know what I mean, but now it's a little more... quaint?
That's not to say it's not good. It has an interesting perspective on AIDS, teen sexuality, poverty, racism, religion, drug addiction -- all the controversial issues you can cram into a pretty short book without going overboard, and it does cram them in really well. It also has a cute romance subplot and a bit of a meditation on place. It's fun and a little suspenseful and it has some things to say that still need to be heard in 2018, so it's worth it to push past the weirder late-90s bits to get to them.