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A review by aiyanasprose
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
5.0
Nicole Dennis-Benn wrote the hell out of this book! This story is one i trust to scream in; it explored the complex psychology of needing to explore/expand your existence and not having the space to do so. Patsy was taken by the wave of misogynoir, and it plagues the ways she regards herself, and inadvertently, the people in her life. Patsy's identity has been hoarded in her subconscious and she is honoring that unlived life as she moves from Jamaica to America. But she's leaving her baby girl, Tru with the child's father.
To me, the move was an act of resistance. Against her religious mother, against the role this world prepared and served her before she could spell her name, and against the demand that she put her daughter's life before her own. It was a rejection of all the things we are conditioned to desire.
ALSO: With Black women usually existing in the peripheral of popular media, Nicole was so meticulous in developing WHOLE characters. I cannot express how much i appreciate that sort of tenderness and deliberation.
To me, the move was an act of resistance. Against her religious mother, against the role this world prepared and served her before she could spell her name, and against the demand that she put her daughter's life before her own. It was a rejection of all the things we are conditioned to desire.
ALSO: With Black women usually existing in the peripheral of popular media, Nicole was so meticulous in developing WHOLE characters. I cannot express how much i appreciate that sort of tenderness and deliberation.