A review by bloodmaarked
The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed
3.0
The Black Kids is a book that I had been really looking forward to reading for a while, and so when I happened to see one lone copy on the shelves of my local bookstore, I decided to treat myself. I was excited to get started because of all the books that I've decided to buy this past year, I've loved every one of them. In the end, I did like TBK, but I didn't love it in the way I'd hoped.
The good:
✧ I loved the realness and the relatability of the characters. I loved LaShawn, and I loved Lana, but for me, it was Ashley (the main character) who stood out. I found her incredibly relatable, probably because of the way I can see so much of myself in her story. She's a black teen and is affected by race, but she also has the privilege of being able to distance herself from the way race affects others in her community because her parents have grown her in a privileged bubble. When the Rodney King riots strike LA, she's torn between knowing how much she should care, and turning a blind eye to the issues at hand. Her primary friend group is all-white; she finds herself creating an 'us vs. them' mentality when she compares herself to the other black kids in her school. She's been hidden away from her own family's history. She's also a teenager learning how to overcome her flaws and deal with the growing pains of high school.
Jo, her sister, is almost the antithesis to Ashley. In her family's eyes, Jo feels too much. She fights for the rights of herself and her people (in fact, for anyone in need), at the risk of endangering herself. There's a perpetual weight on her shoulders that the rest of her family can't seem to wrap their heads around. The dynamic between Ashley and Jo was perfect. They were tethered to each other, even if they couldn't always see eye to eye.
✧ One of the things that struck me about this book was the timeliness of it. The story is set in 1992, and yet, unfortunately, it felt as if it could be set in 2020. The opening to chapter 22 struck me in particular - it could be lifted almost word for word and used to describe this past summer. It's disheartening, and very coincidental considering that this was released in August, but the message of the book hits harder because of it.
✧ I really liked how TBK tackled several issues: race, class, and even some feminist themes popped up. I think the fact that this story was told from the perspective of a young and wealthy black girl made this a really interesting read. It's also not very often that we get narratives across media which portray a black protagonist that's well-off.
The not so good:
✦ This, for me, was a really slow starter. I started reading this book, got about 40 pages in, and wasn't inclined to pick it back up again for about three weeks. I was going to mark it as DNF and come back to it in a few months, but I decided to just start again and managed to read through until the end. For me, that was a big turn-off; it's one thing to not be hooked in the first few chapters but another to put the book down and be reluctant to pick it up again for long enough that you forget who the characters are and what's happened so far.
✦ TBK is very much character-driven rather than plot-driven. That's not a bad thing, but for me, I tend to enjoy plot-driven stories much more. With character-driven stories, I often get 50-75% of the way through and start to wonder "where is this even going?"
✦ The narrative is a little jumpy at times, especially towards the beginning, which made it a little tough to follow at first. There's a lot of jumping between points in time and it was part of what turned me away from reading the first time around.
✦ I found the blurb to be a little misleading. It says that once the riots start, Ashley suddenly finds herself as one of the black kids. But actually, this doesn't really happen. In fact, much of the storyline centres specifically around how Ashley doesn't associate herself with the other black kids, and she isn't pulled into or personally affected by what's going on around her until one particular instance later into the book.
Overall, I did like The Black Kids, even if it took a little longer than expected for me to sink my teeth into. I would still recommend this book because I think it tackles a lot of very important issues, all of which continue to be highly relevant in today's world.
The good:
✧ I loved the realness and the relatability of the characters. I loved LaShawn, and I loved Lana, but for me, it was Ashley (the main character) who stood out. I found her incredibly relatable, probably because of the way I can see so much of myself in her story. She's a black teen and is affected by race, but she also has the privilege of being able to distance herself from the way race affects others in her community because her parents have grown her in a privileged bubble. When the Rodney King riots strike LA, she's torn between knowing how much she should care, and turning a blind eye to the issues at hand. Her primary friend group is all-white; she finds herself creating an 'us vs. them' mentality when she compares herself to the other black kids in her school. She's been hidden away from her own family's history. She's also a teenager learning how to overcome her flaws and deal with the growing pains of high school.
Jo, her sister, is almost the antithesis to Ashley. In her family's eyes, Jo feels too much. She fights for the rights of herself and her people (in fact, for anyone in need), at the risk of endangering herself. There's a perpetual weight on her shoulders that the rest of her family can't seem to wrap their heads around. The dynamic between Ashley and Jo was perfect. They were tethered to each other, even if they couldn't always see eye to eye.
✧ One of the things that struck me about this book was the timeliness of it. The story is set in 1992, and yet, unfortunately, it felt as if it could be set in 2020. The opening to chapter 22 struck me in particular - it could be lifted almost word for word and used to describe this past summer. It's disheartening, and very coincidental considering that this was released in August, but the message of the book hits harder because of it.
✧ I really liked how TBK tackled several issues: race, class, and even some feminist themes popped up. I think the fact that this story was told from the perspective of a young and wealthy black girl made this a really interesting read. It's also not very often that we get narratives across media which portray a black protagonist that's well-off.
The not so good:
✦ This, for me, was a really slow starter. I started reading this book, got about 40 pages in, and wasn't inclined to pick it back up again for about three weeks. I was going to mark it as DNF and come back to it in a few months, but I decided to just start again and managed to read through until the end. For me, that was a big turn-off; it's one thing to not be hooked in the first few chapters but another to put the book down and be reluctant to pick it up again for long enough that you forget who the characters are and what's happened so far.
✦ TBK is very much character-driven rather than plot-driven. That's not a bad thing, but for me, I tend to enjoy plot-driven stories much more. With character-driven stories, I often get 50-75% of the way through and start to wonder "where is this even going?"
✦ The narrative is a little jumpy at times, especially towards the beginning, which made it a little tough to follow at first. There's a lot of jumping between points in time and it was part of what turned me away from reading the first time around.
✦ I found the blurb to be a little misleading. It says that once the riots start, Ashley suddenly finds herself as one of the black kids. But actually, this doesn't really happen. In fact, much of the storyline centres specifically around how Ashley doesn't associate herself with the other black kids, and she isn't pulled into or personally affected by what's going on around her until one particular instance later into the book.
Overall, I did like The Black Kids, even if it took a little longer than expected for me to sink my teeth into. I would still recommend this book because I think it tackles a lot of very important issues, all of which continue to be highly relevant in today's world.