Assembly - Natasha Brown

Fiction

Rating: 7.5/10

Be the best. Work harder, work smarter.  Get good grades. Get into college.  Start a career.  Buy a home.  Get married.  Be grateful.  Be civil in a hostile environment.  Keep your head down.  Don’t make a fuss. Don’t make anyone uncomfortable. Go unnoticed. 

The narrator of this book is a black woman at a crossroads in her life, contemplating all she has assembled through the lens of the tenets she has been expected to follow.  It’s a book about the stories we live, the stories we tell ourselves and each other and those we want to leave on record.  It’s about race and class, perception and power and the uncompromising pursuit of acceptance. It’s about the shame those with privilege expect you to have for your…luck.  It’s about the anger of those who feel you have taken something from them, taken their spot.  It’s about the exhaustion brought on by observing those that believe themselves deserving of happy endings and painless resolutions. It’s about everything that matters.

A slim book that demands a careful and thoughtful read.  This is an author who packs a punch in every word, and you don’t want to miss them landing.

Book Pairing(s): Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid, Woman Talking by Miriam Toews