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

Maya Angelou’s ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ is a memoir of her time facing racism, sexism and questions of her sexuality as a child and teenager. It is also difficult to review a memoir as it is almost as if I am reviewing and praising or criticising another’s life and experiences, though am still inclined to come to some conclusion on such. It follows her and her brother Bailey navigating childhood in the Deep South of America before returning to their parents in the North.

This potion of her life was illuminating, turbulent and interesting though I struggled to entirety engage with the book, though narrated by Angelou herself with so much passion, both memoirs aren’t my typical genre and the book felt really fragmented. I am still unsure if this may be because I could’ve listened to an abridged version, though am not even sure wether it was abridged or not as I have found nothing to say otherwise though my audiobook recording felt really short. Abridged or otherwise, Angelou’s decision to split her autobiography across 7 books, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ only being the first, it still lacked any satisfying closure and just seemed to end without warning, not even setting itself up for the second book.

Each fragmented event was interesting and held literary merit in itself, but as a chronology they really didn’t work for me and just felt tacked together with no particular rhyme nor reason. I will also highlight that there are highly detailed scenes of SA that occur in Angelou’s life and therefore autobiography, it is handled well illuminating to see the shifting emotions as Angelou grappled with understanding her victimisation, but still worth being aware of if undertaking this book. It was certainly interesting, whereas I don’t think the first part (and most praised) was enough to persuade me to undertaking the vast number of further parts in Angelou’s collection of memoirs.

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theelliad's review against another edition

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3.5

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is Maya Angelou’s autobiography, exploring the challenges and triumphs of her life.

This was required reading for my module last year and despite really enjoying what I read of it, I never got round to reading the full book until now. Angelou’s writing is so beautiful and captivating, especially when read by herself, I literally had to finish this in one sitting! I’m not typically a non-fiction reader and so the narrative exploration and descriptive attention to detail felt as immersive and entertaining as any fiction. Her coming to terms with herself, her trauma and the struggles of those around her is made both painful and relatable even for those who have never or will never experience the things she did. This is a case study in self writing and Angelou truly is someone to be studied and remembered. I don’t however understand the purpose of making an autobiography 7 <200 books? Perhaps that is just how storygraph classifies it but this book alone definitely didn’t feel complete which was annoying, I would happily have endured a longer cohesive piece instead of having to spread the reading across multiple books. (note post finishing: apparently there is audio editions of all 7 in one so that’s my bad i just didn’t realise it had 7 parts so didn’t think to look) Overall an enjoyable read :))

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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.75

Difficult to read, but in the way that it challenges how you think about things.

In particular this made me consider the times it took place during, the "good ole days" and how shitty they were for a lot people. I make it a habit to not read much about a book before I pick it up to give everything a fair chance and the reason why I picked those one up was because I saw it on a list of commonly banned books. While it contains some mature(-ish) content, it is much tamer than many things I read as a youth and the value of showing other-ing on a personal degree is unmatched.

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madamenovelist's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

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asiamd's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

I loved this book! I expected to cry a lot more which I did in the beginning of the book but the manner in which she wrote the story felt so calm to me and not in a bad way. It just felt so sweet and beautiful but also at times sad and horrific. It kept me really engaged in a way that I couldn’t cry because I was so caught up in her story and what she was telling. For me this book kinda felt like a love letter to little black girls telling them look at my life and what I’ve went through and see my happy and sad moments and know you’re not alone. Even though this book isn’t technically a poetry book that’s what it felt like to me, to be able to read someones life and the obstacles they went through as a young child is so amazing to me and I can’t wait to read the next book in her autobiography series!

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bookishlittleme's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Maya Angelou is an incredibly significant figure in the arts and this is definitely a must read!

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