A review by moonyreadsbystarlight
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston

reflective

• Strong character development? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It's really hard to properly rate this. It was an interesting read from a historical or academic perspective. A lot of the change stylistically was interesting and it's interesting to see how it fits in with her longer works. I'm not sure that I would say that I enjoyed all of the short stories. A lot of them were very similar, so it felt repetitive (though, this is just all of her works -- it wasn't curated by her to be a collection, so I have considered that). There were some specific ones that were quite interesting and did enjoy, even if there were a lot that I felt more lukewarm about. I felt like there was a lot to unpack thematically in a lot of these. Some of them, I was able to follow the themes and what they meant, but some of them seemed to have mixed or surprising messages. I think I would perhaps have a different understanding were I doing a closer reading in a different context. 

I did appreciate the introduction. The only real criticism I have of the additional information is that it may have been better if the information about each short story were at the beginning of each individual story, not all just at the beginning of the book as a whole. Since I listened on audiobook, I couldn't go back and forth to read about each story, which I think would have added to the experience. 

Overall, I'm glad I read it. I could see myself potentially returning to this if I end up doing a deep-dive into classics later. I think I would appreciate it more in that context. I would definitely recommend it to people who have enjoyed her other work.