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hammychelsey 's review for:
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
by Hanif Abdurraqib
This book completely confounded me during the entire first HALF of the reading experience and was nearly beyond my reading comprehension level— I was disoriented, uncertain, way out of my league. I have no connection to Columbus, Ohio. I don’t care about basketball, even a little bit. My lived experience is very different from a Black man’s in America. I had no context for any of the cultural references, historical recollections, or regional musings. From the very first page: I felt like I’d walked into a conversation midway, and then was constantly interrupted by tangent thoughts and inside jokes and stories that had no end (or middle, or beginning sometimes).
In so many ways, this book was not made for me. But also: the existence of a book means an author has invited you into something very intimate, and very real. We get to step into somebody else’s shoes. And I can’t help but be so thankful to have gotten to see the world through this author’s eyes. He writes about 1 slice of 1 specific world, with the care of somebody who really, deeply loves where they are from and the things that shaped them.
I have read poetry, and caught glimpses of how poets see the world. But I’ve never spent so much time inside the mind of one, processing time and relationship and love and grief and life in the way that a poet does (spoiler: it’s non-linear and contemplative and flowery and melodramatic). This book was completely immersive, and it affected me a lot in the way I reflect on my own hometown, and how I make meaning out of things, and how I measure time. By the second half of it, I understood the rhythm and style a bit more and was able to receive the stories the same way I’d receive a collage, or a deep dive of somebody’s un-chronological notes.
This book felt beyond a rating. But I’m really glad I read it. Authors are amazing. This author impressed me. I’m so glad he wrote the book.
In so many ways, this book was not made for me. But also: the existence of a book means an author has invited you into something very intimate, and very real. We get to step into somebody else’s shoes. And I can’t help but be so thankful to have gotten to see the world through this author’s eyes. He writes about 1 slice of 1 specific world, with the care of somebody who really, deeply loves where they are from and the things that shaped them.
I have read poetry, and caught glimpses of how poets see the world. But I’ve never spent so much time inside the mind of one, processing time and relationship and love and grief and life in the way that a poet does (spoiler: it’s non-linear and contemplative and flowery and melodramatic). This book was completely immersive, and it affected me a lot in the way I reflect on my own hometown, and how I make meaning out of things, and how I measure time. By the second half of it, I understood the rhythm and style a bit more and was able to receive the stories the same way I’d receive a collage, or a deep dive of somebody’s un-chronological notes.
This book felt beyond a rating. But I’m really glad I read it. Authors are amazing. This author impressed me. I’m so glad he wrote the book.