I just finished reading Trevor Noah’s book, Casey Gerald’s book, and Michelle Obama’s book. Well actually the authors read the books to me. Which for these particular three books I feel was the best way to experience them.
They are all autobiographical and they all touch on societal discourse in a very genuine way. I’m grateful for all three of the authors for being so candid and sharing their experiences growing up and their viewpoints. Their perspectives are so important. My favorite out of the three was Casey Gerald book and the reason why is because I feel like he’s touching on a truth he’s unabatedly speaking about all of the contradictions that exist and how he has navigated them and some of the mental anguish that exists when trying to move through those spaces.
Trevor Noah’s book those super entertaining and very funny seem that it was very important that every single issue story in episode end on a high note as if to give some white readers a glimpse of hope and the inclusive ,’I don’t hate you but I think you can do better in the way that you do things’ kind of vibe. That’s cool and all but I’m just kind of not in the mood for creating roadmaps for people that I feel like I need to create road maps of solutions for themselves.
Michelle Obama’s book seemed a bit guarded which I totally understand. She’s a huge public figure and there’s a lot to lose doing a book like this as far as just your sanity and your privacy so I appreciate that she did tell what she could tell and told it in her wonderfully eloquent way. I particularly enjoyed her description of moving into the White House and occupying that space as a family of color and as an underrepresented American family. I also appreciated her warnings of danger of classifying areas as ghettos.
Casey Gerald book I may have to get an actual tangible version of this book. He has so many quotables. I just absolutely love the way that he describes the feeling of his existence and all of these spaces from Yale, to home, to his relationships it’s just a beautiful way of writing. I think he might hate this comparison, his writing makes me feel the way that James Baldwin’s writing make me feel it’s like a contemporary voice for these collection of experiences and emotion of contradictory ideas and expectations. If you can only pick one, read this book.