A review by tajia
Midnight by Sister Souljah

2.0

I wanted to like this book, I really did, but I couldn’t. But I’ll start with the high notes: the erring itself is good. I really enjoyed the visuals of the neighborhoods, hearing Midnights thoughts, and how you could float right into his world. I even like the contrasting of Islam in America and somewhere else, and may do my own research into that because it’s just fascinating to think anout. But even all of that couldn’t save the book for me. I understand that Midnight could be an unreliable narrator; as a writer, as a teacher, I understand the technique. But after reading reviews of the other books and seeing this is a CONSTANT thing, I don’t think I’ll be continuing it. How he portrays not just women, but Black women specifically is horrid. The fact Bangs is raped by an Uncle and he STILL finds her “unhonorable” sealed the nail on the coffin for me. Even at 14 I understood rape and the mental effects it has, I could only assume that for as mature as midnight is he could too. Then how he portrayed Asian women as this perfect archetype who could do no wrong—-a Black woman is sarcastic and it’s a testament to how despicable they are, but an Asian woman does it and suddenly it’s so cute to see how mad they are? A black woman shows skin and it’s horrible but an Asian woman does it and it’s adorable? Yeah, no thank you for me. It was honestly too much, and I couldn’t get passed it, especially reading interviews from the author and...it didn’t get better. This might be a serious and an author I can’t get behind.