A review by klor
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

3.75

In a trip to California about 4 years ago, a friend asked me, "What age did you realize that other people existed (outside of your own life)?" That was a constant reminder throughout reading the first half of the book and throughout, especially as Rankine details the various microagressions that happen in her daily life and slowly expanding that into the larger scale things such as biases and police brutality. Sometimes we just want to be seen, but properly.

While the scripts in the middle of the book left a lot to be desired, the writing points out a clear picture in between the various vignettes of what it's like to live as a black person in today's world. I'd love to reread this book in the future as I think it's something that grows on you with time.
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