This is a beautiful book, and it was wonderful to hear it read by the author. Highly recommend, but check out the TWs as this book details a lot of trauma. 

This is a stunning book but probably the most emotionally challenging thing I've read all year. I probably wouldn't have listened to it if I'd known how harrowing it was. I personally related to some of it, though not on such a severe or scary level. Maybe that's why it was so hard to listen to at times. I nearly deleted the audiobook when it got to the bit about the old poet. I'm glad I didn't, though, because it was lovely to hear how the author managed to turn her difficult childhood and experiences of trauma into success and a beautiful novel. You could also tell that she has a very warm heart and is keen for others to succeed where she struggled. 
 There were a lot of very accurate observations here. One that broke my heart especially was Safiya Sinclair expecting her father to be protective of her in the face of other abusive men because he was so strict and fierce, and being let down because he preferred to side with the comfort of the patriarchy over his own family. 
 Also the depiction of men getting exploited and bullied at work and coming home and enacting the same on the family was so sad, especially we see it through the child Safiya's eyes.
 I learned a lot about Rastafarianism and also why this movement was necessary - Sinclair's depiction of her move to the USA and the racism she faced leading to her understanding of the same was so eye-opening. 
 Equally shocking (to me, a naive person with not much knowledge of the Caribbean) was the clear description of how colonialism is alive and well in Jamaica through the tourism industry. 
 I will be looking to read Sinclair's poetry because her writing style is absolutely gorgeous! 

This one cracked me right open and broke me in the best possible way one could be broken–which is to say–by art.

There are some authors who write in a way that is effortlessly beautiful. Safiya Sinclair has some of the most effortfully beautiful writing I've ever read. Every word is a perfectly and precisely chosen jewel, spun up into these iridescent strands that you cannot help but marvel at. Listening to the way that Sinclair describes even the most mundane things is enchanting and almost transcendental, like seeing a brand new color for the very first time.

This book is comped to Educated by Tara Westover (arguably my favorite memoir) and although this is a very different story, I agree that it hits a lot of overlapping themes. Most particularly, both books show the power of education as a means of breaking free from oppression. At one point, Safiya phrases this as her and her siblings "outdreaming the confines of [their] small world" and that is such an apt description. So many moments brought tears to my eyes, just thinking about the unwavering strength of women, forgiveness in the face of what seems unforgivable, and perhaps most of all: escaping from patriarchy and generational trauma.

Audiobook allll the way - this is the kind of writing that is meant to be read out loud and it hit extra hard to hear Sinclair's story through her own voice.

Overall thoughts: I think this book will be too meandering or too flowery for many people. I would definitely check the trigger warnings on this one. But if you like writing that is gorgeous for its own sake and have the energy to pick up something that is likely to emotionally shatter you, this book is an absolute triumph.

Select quotes:
“‘I was a dead-left child, abandoned.’ Her voice was thin and faraway. I gazed into the unspoken distance of where she was now gazing. ‘My world was small and bleak. But poetry made it seem wide and wild and warmer.’

Her face lit up as she laughed and told me that that was alliteration. I asked her what alliteration was and she explained it to me. I crowded in greedy. Each word she tossed I caught, and watched it come alive in my hands.

‘Poetry is the best of what I have come to love about this world,’ my mother said.”

“I screamed until I was hoarse, for her. The young girl who had stepped onto that rusty nail. The one who charmed a room of white men to get a scholarship to private school. The girl who read the dictionary and encyclopedia night after night. The girl who walked away from that glass shard to conjure her silver poem. The one who birthed herself from the veiled world into possibility. The first girl in a line of girls who looked into the frayed face of her bleak future and said 'no'. I rejoiced now, for her, and for her, and for her.”

“Day after day, I swung over those words, and saw ahead of me a life withering slowly under all his multiplying decrees. Day after day my heart bucked up against it. I was never going to be the perfect daughter. A grin of mischief opened ever so slyly inside me, a seedling of a voice that said no.”

Beautifully written, if a bit long-winded at times. I was really taken aback by how similar stories of abuse are, even though the circumstances vary from person to person. I connected it with my own life a lot, and I saw the resemblance to similar memoirs such as Educated. 

I also appreciated that Safiya Sinclair included information about Rastafari and Jamaican history, so we would have proper context as we read.

Safiya is clearly an incredible writer, and she does a wonderful job weaving together the complex emotions that come from experiencing abuse. On top of that, the complexity is deepened even further by the generational trauma of colonization and poverty. I found it to be a very well-rounded memoir with a great balance of personal experience and historical research.