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A review by ambershelf
God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer by Joseph Earl Thomas
4.0
4.25/5
Gifted by the publisher
Very stream of consciousness writing style that could be a hit or miss for readers. The sentences are also super long and sometimes I have to reread a couple times to understand the meaning. Definitely not a quick read even though ifs only 230 pages.
It’s hard to write about Black trauma without making it read like trauma porn. The author does a really great job describing everything Black men experiences—racism, violence, poverty, etc—that doesn’t feel melodramatic.
The writing style also strikes a good balance between funny nonchalance, dark humor, and incisive social commentary. It reminds me of that GIF of a boy laugh crying, and that was my reaction too!
Some of my favorite quotes:
I think about what it means to die of natural causes, or really feel natural or get to decide what is natural or unnatural and under what circumstances and in whose language, as I return to Red Top's room.
The symbolic in politics, the racism, the sex-ism, these things had already bored us for so long, just like the guilt of those newly discovered liberals who just then, six months into a forever war that should have, like most all wars waged by the empire and elsewhere, been illegal-where the legal vs. illegal had already been a bit of a sardonic double bind-come to discover their conscience after one of these psychos mows down a human fleeing in an open field with a vehicle-mounted .50-cal just because he planted a small bomb that didn't even kill anyone. (Yes this is one sentence
Gifted by the publisher
Very stream of consciousness writing style that could be a hit or miss for readers. The sentences are also super long and sometimes I have to reread a couple times to understand the meaning. Definitely not a quick read even though ifs only 230 pages.
It’s hard to write about Black trauma without making it read like trauma porn. The author does a really great job describing everything Black men experiences—racism, violence, poverty, etc—that doesn’t feel melodramatic.
The writing style also strikes a good balance between funny nonchalance, dark humor, and incisive social commentary. It reminds me of that GIF of a boy laugh crying, and that was my reaction too!
Some of my favorite quotes:
I think about what it means to die of natural causes, or really feel natural or get to decide what is natural or unnatural and under what circumstances and in whose language, as I return to Red Top's room.
The symbolic in politics, the racism, the sex-ism, these things had already bored us for so long, just like the guilt of those newly discovered liberals who just then, six months into a forever war that should have, like most all wars waged by the empire and elsewhere, been illegal-where the legal vs. illegal had already been a bit of a sardonic double bind-come to discover their conscience after one of these psychos mows down a human fleeing in an open field with a vehicle-mounted .50-cal just because he planted a small bomb that didn't even kill anyone. (Yes this is one sentence