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A review by eesh25
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
5.0
4.5 Stars
My first-ever nonfiction book! Well, unless you count The Diary of a Young Girl, which I read half of when I was sixteen until I found out that a) it was nonfiction, and b) Anne Frank died in a concentration camp. That was when I stopped reading.
But anyway, getting back to the book at hand. This is a story told by Trevor Noah. If you're not familiar with him, he's a comedian and a talk-show host, and he grew up as a mixed child in South Africa during Apartheid when it was illegal to be mixed—i.e. have one white and one non-white parent. In the book, he tells stories from his life in South Africa from childhood to around the age of twenty.
Now, before this book, I didn't know much about Apartheid. I'm not a huge history reader, and this wasn't exactly taught in Indian schools. And Trevor took into account that many people wouldn't know about Apartheid and started with a simple but clear explanation of what it was.
This book was a combination of facts about Apartheid, stories about Trevor's life, Trevor's own opinions about government systems that controlled his country, and the opinions he's formed over the course of the events of his life. The facts were very informative and stated plainly. The stories about his life were hilariously told, funny in and of themselves and, often, tragic. And while I can't say I agree with every one of his opinions—his lesson regarding his dog, Fufi, comes to mind—his comments were always insightful and thought-provoking.
The structure that Trevor chose for the book is one that I liked for the most part. Each chapter focused either on a defining moment or a person and the role they played for him. The only thing that didn't work about it was that, because of the non-linear timeline, I had to occasionally take a moment to realign where each event fit chronologically.
Overall, this was a great book. Trevor's narration was brilliant. I adored Trevor's relationship with his mother—she's awesome, by the way. I loved that the book was funny but never shied away from the stark truths of life under Apartheid. And again, Trevor has a lot of great insight into racism, culture, religion and more. And he went about it in as non-biased a way as he could. There's no bitterness to Trevor's writing, something that's even more evident in the audio.
I highly recommend that you check this book out. Even if, like me, you don't really read nonfiction.
My first-ever nonfiction book! Well, unless you count The Diary of a Young Girl, which I read half of when I was sixteen until I found out that a) it was nonfiction, and b) Anne Frank died in a concentration camp. That was when I stopped reading.
But anyway, getting back to the book at hand. This is a story told by Trevor Noah. If you're not familiar with him, he's a comedian and a talk-show host, and he grew up as a mixed child in South Africa during Apartheid when it was illegal to be mixed—i.e. have one white and one non-white parent. In the book, he tells stories from his life in South Africa from childhood to around the age of twenty.
Now, before this book, I didn't know much about Apartheid. I'm not a huge history reader, and this wasn't exactly taught in Indian schools. And Trevor took into account that many people wouldn't know about Apartheid and started with a simple but clear explanation of what it was.
This book was a combination of facts about Apartheid, stories about Trevor's life, Trevor's own opinions about government systems that controlled his country, and the opinions he's formed over the course of the events of his life. The facts were very informative and stated plainly. The stories about his life were hilariously told, funny in and of themselves and, often, tragic. And while I can't say I agree with every one of his opinions—his lesson regarding his dog, Fufi, comes to mind—his comments were always insightful and thought-provoking.
The structure that Trevor chose for the book is one that I liked for the most part. Each chapter focused either on a defining moment or a person and the role they played for him. The only thing that didn't work about it was that, because of the non-linear timeline, I had to occasionally take a moment to realign where each event fit chronologically.
Overall, this was a great book. Trevor's narration was brilliant. I adored Trevor's relationship with his mother—she's awesome, by the way. I loved that the book was funny but never shied away from the stark truths of life under Apartheid. And again, Trevor has a lot of great insight into racism, culture, religion and more. And he went about it in as non-biased a way as he could. There's no bitterness to Trevor's writing, something that's even more evident in the audio.
I highly recommend that you check this book out. Even if, like me, you don't really read nonfiction.