Reviews with content warning for Racism - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

259 reviews

derekthelizardwizzard's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

I would like to have met Maya Angelou. She seems to have been a great person.

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nlo's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

I saw someone in the reviews wrote that it would have been better if it was fiction ??? its an autobiography ... and to top it off it was written by and about *the* talented Maya Angelou. That seemed like such an odd comment to me.

Anyway, this book satisfies my taste for autobiographies of famous American culture literature writers. While I might not relate to most of what Angelou shares, I would have been telling a complete lie if I said this piece of literature was not moving. Not only does this autobiography show you what it took for Ms. Angelou to become who she became, it also showed me a glimpse of what it was like to live in the United States as a black woman in the 30s and 40s. Angelou does a great job of sharing some of the smaller details and larger themes that encompassed American society at that time in a way that puts American history books to shame.

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atuin's review against another edition

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reflective

5.0

A beutifuly written memoir about growing up during the 30's and 40's. I'm glad I listened to the audio version, as one of the events in the novel is Maya Angelou learning that speaking text gives it more life than just reading. All of the people she writes about are so well written they seem to jump out of the recording. As a memoir, it goes through different moments of her life that she remembers, some funny, some terribly sad, but all are interesting and paint a picture of a fascinating and well lived life.

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philomath1983's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.25

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fjcrow's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

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veskumelooni's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

5.0

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leseratte69's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Very beautiful and poetic despite there being some traumatising explicit experiences.

This book is one of its kind as a literary autobiography. As it’s a coming of age story, the chapters seem more like short stories. I found myself getting lost in the detail and so found it harder to be absorbed in the story.

Quotes I found wonderful were:
‘One girl, whose name and face have melted into the years’
‘He was forever dropping slangy terms into his sentences like dumplings in a pot’
‘Bailey was the greatest person in the world. And the fact that he was my brother, my only brother, and I had no sisters to share him with, was such a good fortune that it made me want to live a Christian life just to show God that I was grateful.’

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c1nsz's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

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_moonbread's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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betag1013's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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