Irreverent, vulnerable, and unapologetic in every sense.
Detroit-based model, blogger, and activist Vernon describes life caught between the societal boxes of white and Islamic cultures.
Narrating the story of her life, the author takes aim at the societal vitriol directed at those living in fat, black, and Muslim bodies. “Deciding, really deciding, to unapologetically wear my hijab for me has been the most freeing and rebellious and feminist thing I could possibly do,” she writes. In a brash, slang-heavy text, Vernon—whose work has appeared in Elle, Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and the New York Times, among other publications—speaks to experiences often concealed within her communities, including mental illness, divorce, abortion, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, and body-shaming. “Self-worth was a roller coaster,” she writes, “and mine was usually attached to what I could and couldn’t fit into.” Though these traumas have deeply impacted the trajectory of Vernon’s life, she takes care to enthusiastically portray her triumphs: her escape from a dysfunctional marriage, her personal flourishing as she embarked on a plus-size modeling career, and the creation of her semiviral video, “Muslim Girl Dance.” Vernon’s narration reads like an intimate heart-to-heart chat with a friend; while her off-the-cuff riffing is infectious, the storytelling occasionally rambles. Readers may balk at the author’s apparent disdain for incarcerated people and women who have casual sex, and not everyone will understand the hard-won wisdom behind “Angry Black Bitch,” Vernon’s inner persona that turned racist, sexist, and fat-phobic aggression into the courage “[t]o step out of my comfort zone and fuckin’ live a little.” However, those looking for an imperfect hero of her own story, “with [her] own opinions and skewed outlooks and quirks,” will find this a quick, cheeky read, and her message is solid. “We are all humans with complexities,” she writes. “We are equal. We are fucked up. But we are beautiful and interesting and knowledgeable.”
Irreverent, vulnerable, and unapologetic in every sense.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8070-1262-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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