Reviews with content warning for Rape - Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

This was my second time reading this: I skimmed through it a few summers ago out of sheer boredom and found it decent, but we were assigned it as summer reading for AP Lang this year so I'm writing it a proper review now.

I'll start out by saying that I did enjoy this book. I thought the storytelling was good, I thought the way mother-son relationships were highlighted, and I liked that it featured three of my favorite things: race, class, and masculinity. Noah did a fantastic job of balancing the deeper, less funny moments of his childhood with lighthearted stories and memories, which kept this from being too depressing. I also appreciate how short and segmented it was: making non-fiction accessible and interesting is very difficult, but the way this read like a collection of short stories rather than one connected text made it a more enjoyable reading experience.

However, there were a few things I didn't like. It often felt that stories would end without resolution and then the topic would switch to something entirely different, which was a little annoying. Some parts of the story and the usage of certain phrases also struck me as being somewhat misogynistic. I understand that Trevor Noah is a man, and therefore the book centers around his experiences as a man, but there were some parts that felt a little sexist to me. Also, I wasn't always a huge fan of his writing style: I know that he's primarily a comedian, so I wasn't expecting incredible writing or anything, but I still felt like there were certain chapters that fell a little flat.

I also really liked the final chapter. Although it was heartbreaking and painful to read, I think it was so necessary. Trevor's mother not being able to press charges against her abusive husband because the police told her it would 'ruin his life' was so infuriating to me because it happens to so many women across the world: the minimizing of a woman's fear and pain and suffering to protect a man's ego and reputation.

I always appreciate reading about something I don't know much about, and overall, I really enjoyed this, so I'll give it a 3.75 rounded up. Not my favorite, but when is assigned reading ever my favorite?

“You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad. Where you either hate them or love them. But that's not how people are.”

Content Warnings