colleenroyer 's review for:

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride, Jo Piazza

3.5

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I’m a bit torn on my rating on this one. On the one hand, it is an extremely important topic- racial tensions and police brutality have been the focus of dozens of news stories in recent years and things do not seem to be changing. The more these issues can be talked about and humanized, the better. This book does a great job of telling the sides of the story that we may not always see and for that, I liked it. I also liked the concept of the story with two best friends, one black and one white, and how their lives intersect around a police killing of a teenage boy. But…

I feel like we could’ve gotten deeper with these characters and how they worked through these issues. The women spent the majority of the book avoiding one another and have few conversations discussing the issue at hand. I feel like we could’ve spent more time on their interactions with one another versus some of the periphery things going on. But maybe that’s another book. Maybe we need to come back a few years later to see how, or if, Jenny, the white friend, has grown. 

Overall, it’s a good book. Again, the topic is important and I liked having the two perspectives, but I just feel something was missing to make it as great as it could’ve been.