I didn't know Safiya Sinclair was a poet when I started reading this book, but by the time I'd finished the first page, I could tell she had a phenomenal way with words. And indeed, this is a breathtakingly evocative book that transported me to the Jamaica she grew up in in the '80s and '90s. I learned so much about Rastafarianism and Jamaican culture, and I felt the author's despair, loneliness, and glimmers of hope as she suffered through an authoritarian, abusive upbringing. More specifically, I found myself shuddering and having to put the book down when an injury was described, and, later, my eyes filled with tears during an emotional moment.

It took me a couple chapters to get my bearings, but once young Safiya took center stage, I was in. For the most part, she did a great job crafting beautiful prose while staying grounded in the story of her life, but toward the end, I found it harder to connect with what was she was experiencing. I don't know if it was because of the pace picking up too much and virtually skipping whole years and pivotal experiences (I would've liked to know, for example, more about her modeling journey that seemed to come out of nowhere, and her college years), or there being more of an emphasis on her feelings than on the experiences that prompted those feelings, but, for me at least, the narrative seemed to lose its footing a little as she neared the end of her teens, and beyond. I wonder if the author struggled to know where or how to end the book, and that's why I felt some of this disconnect?

Also, the way the author foreshadowed future dire events, namely her father's increasing rigidity and abusive behavior, made me expect worse than what ended up happening. That feels weird to say, because her experiences were unquestionably terrible and her father's actions unconscionable — and I'm obviously glad they weren't worse than they were. I guess I've just read a lot of stories of very bad men, though, and so I was surprised that the man bent on isolating his children from the outside world didn't put up more resistance to certain "worldly" pursuits, and seemed more persuadable than I expected for someone who had seemed to epitomize all that was tyrannical and uncompromising.

Still, a powerful book from start to finish, and one that I won't hesitate to recommend to anyone.