The author, a brown woman details the story of her life showing equal parts courage and confusion. She tells the story of her childhood as an adoptee in a white family in a white town. It is a good introduction for those who have not faced a life of being considered "less".
It is a world best described by someone who has experienced being on the outside for any number of reasons, in this case because of race. Anyone who has felt marginalized by the way they look, will feel akin to the hurt, surprise and determination required to survive. (Tweet This)
Although I did find the constant moving from one city to the next, one best friend to the next, one school and workplace to the next quite exhausting, I feel it did reflect the author's pace towards finding herself. And owning her Blackness.
When she speaks to the conversations with some characters in her life who basically say that 'they don't see her as any different', it hits the mark. As I too am a brown woman. If you don't see your brown friends as different, does that mean that you can't fully appreciate the path that they have walked? I believe that in some part it does.
We never know another person's journey, we never know how their heart has been broken, nor how many times.
I recommend this book, because we will all find ourselves within the pages. Either proud in our humanity or shamed in our ignorance. And both are worth investigating. (Tweet This)
Stay well, stay kind.
Thanks to #NetGalley #Simon&SchusterCanada #SurvivingtheWhiteGaze for the advance copy, pub date Feb. 2021
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