The Best Book I Read in October

This month I’m actually only focusing on one of the books I read. I was already planning on shifting the focus to the books I read in hard copy for the most part, but this one grabbed my entire attention so I wanted to share all the feelings it gave me. Don’t worry, you can always see what I’ve been reading (and e-reading) on Goodreads!

There were a couple of chapters that if you had described them to me beforehand I would have said that they sounded cliché or cheesy. But through the strength of her writing, Jerkins produced something powerful and a little hypnotic.

There is one scene that really stood out to me where this guy has a really aggressive interaction with her that is somehow flirtatious and dismissive at the same time. She left the encounter shaken but also wondering if her discomfort was wholly valid. It reminded me of being relieved that when I left St. Louis, I would never have to ride the airport shuttle again with the man who kept telling me how pretty I was even though I was alone with him and obviously uncomfortable. Some of the chapters are indicative of what black women uniquely face while others are universal. I don’t know any woman who hasn’t been made to feel bad when they are the ones getting hit on.

This book was not meant to reflect everyone. But it can and should be read by anyone. It’s expected that when you read someone’s personal writings that you will relate to something on some level. That is part of the human experience. What I did not expect was to see myself in almost every word she wrote. I ordered a second copy in the middle of the night just to send to my best friend because I thought that this could explain me in words I had never been able to form for myself.

Here’s the thing. There are a lot of books that leave me wanting to have discussions with the writer and ask questions only the author would have the answers to. This is not one of those. I know this girl. I’m not going to say that I am this girl. But I am of the same tribe. We’re kinfolk in the way that only black people with shared experiences can be. There are a lot of themes the I relate to in the book like what it means to be a good girl versus a “fast” girl, how your hair defines you growing up, and being in spaces where people question if you belong. In college, I read Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin and saw parts of myself reflected in the writing. In This Will Be My Undoing, I saw something close to my whole self laid bare.

“Morgan Jerkins is only in her twenties, but she has already established herself as an insightful, brutally honest writer who isn’t afraid of tackling tough, controversial subjects. In This Will Be My Undoing, she takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to “be”—to live as, to exist as—a black woman today? This is a book about black women, but it’s necessary reading for all Americans.

“Doubly disenfranchised by race and gender, often deprived of a place within the mostly white mainstream feminist movement, black women are objectified, silenced, and marginalized with devastating consequences, in ways both obvious and subtle, that are rarely acknowledged in our country’s larger discussion about inequality. In This Will Be My Undoing, Jerkins becomes both narrator and subject to expose the social, cultural, and historical story of black female oppression that influences the black community as well as the white, male-dominated world at large.

“Whether she’s writing about Sailor Moon; Rachel Dolezal; the stigma of therapy; her complex relationship with her own physical body; the pain of dating when men say they don’t “see color”; being a black visitor in Russia; the specter of “the fast-tailed girl” and the paradox of black female sexuality; or disabled black women in the context of the “Black Girl Magic” movement, Jerkins is compelling and revelatory.”