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krichardson's review against another edition
4.0
Powerful and interesting essays that dive into Black singers, dancers, and many other subjects, including astronauts. Abdurraqib does a great job of connecting specific performances to broader cultural topics.
quenchgum's review against another edition
5.0
Thoughts before reading: If you know, you know. If it’s anything like “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us,” then these essays will be original and earnest and stunning. I can’t wait.
Thoughts 100 pages in: Hanif Abdurraqib is going to be a superstar.
Thoughts after finishing: lol, he is SO GOOD. One of those books where you’re 20 pages in and you run to go grab a pencil to start underlining your favorite parts, but then you’re 50 pages in and half of the book is underlined and you’re just a big hot mess, and so instead you try to limit yourself to taking pictures of your top thirty favorite pages, or maybe even trying to commit the whole thing to memory, but that just seems kind of crazy, so you settle around a happy medium of just giving a copy of the book to everyone you meet on the street. Yeah.
Thoughts 100 pages in: Hanif Abdurraqib is going to be a superstar.
Thoughts after finishing: lol, he is SO GOOD. One of those books where you’re 20 pages in and you run to go grab a pencil to start underlining your favorite parts, but then you’re 50 pages in and half of the book is underlined and you’re just a big hot mess, and so instead you try to limit yourself to taking pictures of your top thirty favorite pages, or maybe even trying to commit the whole thing to memory, but that just seems kind of crazy, so you settle around a happy medium of just giving a copy of the book to everyone you meet on the street. Yeah.
longcommutelit's review against another edition
4.0
To observe and to write and to convince people to look more deeply is an act of love, and it is difficult to find a love as loud as Abdurraqib's.
A question that came up in conversation was whether Hanif Abdurraqib's essays convince you of (for lack of a better dichotomy) universal truths or personal truths. That is to say, when he writes essays about the significance of something, is it simply his own personal appraisals and experiences that tell you a person or a place or a moment have a deeper significance?
At times, the answer is yes--this book especially. But in a paradoxical manner, this is the way Abdurraqib brings these subjects closer to all of us. Schoolyard fights and hot spades games in the back of the van and his mother's anger are mirrored with performers and songs and cultural phenomena with the thesis that what can be consumed so passively sometimes, or so superficially, might always means something. And particularly, in Black performance, it is so, so often easy to forget that in a world that has separated artists from the people that they are.
A question that came up in conversation was whether Hanif Abdurraqib's essays convince you of (for lack of a better dichotomy) universal truths or personal truths. That is to say, when he writes essays about the significance of something, is it simply his own personal appraisals and experiences that tell you a person or a place or a moment have a deeper significance?
At times, the answer is yes--this book especially. But in a paradoxical manner, this is the way Abdurraqib brings these subjects closer to all of us. Schoolyard fights and hot spades games in the back of the van and his mother's anger are mirrored with performers and songs and cultural phenomena with the thesis that what can be consumed so passively sometimes, or so superficially, might always means something. And particularly, in Black performance, it is so, so often easy to forget that in a world that has separated artists from the people that they are.
jenniferavignon's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
4.5
again_dangerous_visions_4952's review against another edition
5.0
I will read every word this author publishes for the rest of our lives.
butterfike's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
5.0