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A review by heylemon
When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
It took me a while to get into this book (#mood reader probs), but once I picked it back up a few days ago, I was hooked. I flew through the last third of the book last night and this morning. The tension was so thick and then it all exploded at the end. The ending was tricky because the main conflict in the back was not one that can be solved by two individuals realistically. What can two people do about systemic injustices and aggressions that this country is basically built on?
I did love the theme of Black community. And at the end, it was Black community that saved the MCs. The elderly folks who had lived through this horrific type of attack before knew what to do and showed the fuck up.
Reading this as a white woman was hard in the way it was meant to be, I believe. Cole doesn't ever let up on white folks and it felt so necessary that white readers, like myself, feel implicated while reading this book because WE ARE. Theo's ignorance about the realities of the Black experience in this country shed so much light on how little we know and how little we question things. This was eye-opening and gripping in the best and worst ways.
I did love the theme of Black community.
Reading this as a white woman was hard in the way it was meant to be, I believe. Cole doesn't ever let up on white folks and it felt so necessary that white readers, like myself, feel implicated while reading this book because WE ARE. Theo's ignorance about the realities of the Black experience in this country shed so much light on how little we know and how little we question things. This was eye-opening and gripping in the best and worst ways.