cherreadssharereads 's review for:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

5.0

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This memoir is so powerful. I didn’t realize it was a memoir until she was explaining her name Marguerite and nickname Maya - there’s gotta be something about how she looks back on her childhood in Stamps with an omniscient POV. Like the way she talks about Bailey and her grandmother and the parents didn’t feel very limiting. All this to say that while the memoir was indeed personal and so vulnerable, there was also this sense that she was one step or two removed from the main character. But maybe that is how she deals with her rape and trauma stemming from that and her being separated from her parents (sense of abandonment?) at a young age. All in all, this memoir feels like it just barely scratches the surface on the person Angelou was and what made her who she became.