First, if you haven’t yet read the masterpiece that is Roxane Gay’s recap of Magic Mike XXL, go do that first. Done? Okay, so this book is nothing like that Magic Mike XXL recap, excepting that they are both written by the same very talented writer, who can slip effortlessly from writing obscene yet gut-bustingly hilarious movie recaps with a smidgen of feministic leanings, to writing very deeply personal and intelligent, well-reasoned essays about body image and sexuality and pop culture and rape and race in the […]
Sore Thumb (Part 2)
It’s hard to remember when I first chose to really think about race. Like I said, being a Montanan, and an extremely white Montanan at that, I didn’t know many people of color. My mother claims that I used to cheer for minority characters, even when they were the bad guys, but my clearest memory is being in 5th Grade and taking on a challenging assignment from my teacher Mr. Davey. Read an historical work from an upper reading level. I don’t know what prompted […]
A Different Perspective
“But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America.” [359] The summer before beginning college, I received a package from my new school. It was a paperback copy of The English Patient (1992) by Michael Ondaatje. This was the summer reading for all incoming first year students, and the enclosed letter explained that we would have a book discussion during orientation. […]
Americanah
Last year I read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which is a brilliant fictionalized portrayal of Nigeria before and during the civil war, and was blown away by both the story and her writing. Once I heard she had this new book out, I put myself on the 70-person wait list for Americanah and finally picked it up last Friday. Americanah is about a young woman named Ifemelu who grows up in Nigeria and due to the multiple strikes at her […]