Scan barcode
A review by embermantles
Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump by Ben Philippe
1.0
This book's description makes it seem like it will primarily be a political book, but the essays are far more memoir-like with a few political topics thrown in. That on its own isn't what makes this a frustrating read for me.
The author makes quite a few statements of opinion that he knows are fatphobic, he outrights acknowledges it at one point. He claims that he isn't being fatphobic, that he just really didn't like how he himself looked at that time in his life. That might have been a reasonable explanation, if not for all the times in later essays where he makes comments about how gross fat people's bodies are to him.
He makes claims that he doesn't think he's better than other people, and then just a few paragraphs later tells a story that demonstrates the opposite.
There's an incest joke, delivered very casually right before a sex scene
The essays are full of toxic masculinity, and there's even one where he accuses a male roommate of being too emotionally open and then in the same essay claims that his own emotional openness isn't being reciprocated.
Having finished the book, the only good thing I have to say about it is that at least now I don't have to worry what I might have missed if I hadn't read it.
This is not a book I can recommend to anyone.
The author makes quite a few statements of opinion that he knows are fatphobic, he outrights acknowledges it at one point. He claims that he isn't being fatphobic, that he just really didn't like how he himself looked at that time in his life. That might have been a reasonable explanation, if not for all the times in later essays where he makes comments about how gross fat people's bodies are to him.
He makes claims that he doesn't think he's better than other people, and then just a few paragraphs later tells a story that demonstrates the opposite.
There's an incest joke, delivered very casually right before a sex scene
The essays are full of toxic masculinity, and there's even one where he accuses a male roommate of being too emotionally open and then in the same essay claims that his own emotional openness isn't being reciprocated.
Having finished the book, the only good thing I have to say about it is that at least now I don't have to worry what I might have missed if I hadn't read it.
This is not a book I can recommend to anyone.