by Beverly Bond (editor)
First sentence :”There is a palpable blissfulness in our magic.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s marketed to adults but there’s nothing objectionable. It’s in the Sociology section of the bookstore.
Bond put together a series o short personal essays from a bunch of famous Black women: activists, politicians, actors, musicians, and artists. They each told a small slice of their own story and successes. I’m not sure what the purpose was; possibly it was hoping to inspire other Black women to become their best selves. Maybe it was a collection to highlight the diversity in black Black womanhood (which it did well) and the range of experiences and successes Black women have had.
I wanted to like the book more than I actually did. I like the idea of the book. I like that this book exists. But reading it was a bit of a chore. Some of the essays were well, not great. You could tell that many weren’t writers. And while I wanted to care about their stories, I didn’t always.
Is it an important book? Yes. Was it a good one? I’m not entirely sure.