A review by 05hamiltonk
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman

challenging dark hopeful informative sad medium-paced

5.0

After wanting to read this book for years, I'm completely blown away. What an incredible piece of writing. This book is so extremely powerful. It uses research from historical archives to weave stories of real women and queer people after the abolition of slavery. It documents how black people continued to be subjugated long after slavery officially ended. It demonstrates how this was largely through over/corrupt policing, poverty and racial segregation, and how black individuals and communities were demonised. 

This was one of the most accessible historical books I've ever read and I could not put it down. It also managed to leave me feeling so much hope. Would 1000% recommend everyone to read it.