A review by meganpbell
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

This intense, experimental history weaves together biography, archival record, period photographs, and a kind of radical act of imagination to tell the stories of Black and queer women in Philadelphia and NYC at the turn of the century—their experiments in love, living, sex, family, gender, autonomy, and more—all while under severe legal, societal, and police oppression. This is a challenging read—it’s easy to get lost, but it’s a worthwhile part of being “wayward.”
Expand filter menu Content Warnings