I finally read an an entire book! And it wasn't even something written for children! I'm quite proud of myself. Here is the review I posted on Goodreads:
This book should be required reading for every single person in America. It is a stark portrait of what it is like to be a Black man living in a country determined to kill him. The next time I teach writing in men's prison, I would like to assign both this book and Between the World and Me if I thought I could get away with it. The end of the book gets a bit repetitive because several essays are placed back-to-back about the same topic (the murder of Freddie Gray), and all of the essays were previously published in different media outlets, so they all open with the context of Gray's murder. That said, I really don't think we can read about these situations enough. I do hope that Watkins writes a book though that is written as a book instead of a collection of previously-published essays (I'm not saying the latter is a bad thing -- I would just like to see the former from this author). I know he has a new book either out or forthcoming, so maybe that is the case with his latest. Either way, I look forward to reading more from this author, and even more so to assigning his writings to my students.
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