lynecia 's review for:

4.0

Though I read a handful of these when they were published, re-visiting them still leaves me with much to chew on and grapple with. When you are dealing with an intellectual giant like Ta-Nehisi Coates, that grappling is to be expected.

The author chose 1 piece of writing from each year of the Obama administration and accompanied each piece with a new essay, discussing the piece itself, what key events from that year may have shaped its writing and, also some humble self-critique. I appreciated the humility, but I still find Coates' mastery of the longform piece - part reportage, part criticism, part memoir to be just that -- masterful.

I plan on reading through these pieces again, and exploring further many of the sources that aided in a lot of the research and source material.

Personally, I think "The Case For Reparations" may be one of THE BEST longform pieces ever written. If you pick that up, go straight to that one, it won't disappoint.