Hi everyone. I'm rincey and this is
rincey reads. Today i'm going to be doing
a book review on a black girl unlimited
by Echo Brown. So this book is described
as like part memoir, part coming-of-age
young adult contemporary story with a
bit of fabulism mixed into it all.
So in this story you are following a
character named Echo Brown. She is a
black girl growing up in I believe
Cleveland, Ohio. She lives on the east
side of town, which is like the poor side
of town in a like basically all-black
neighborhood. This story basically
follows her over the course of like her
like childhood through high school kind
of. This is one of those books that's
gonna be really hard for me to summarize,
if that wasn't already apparent. So the
way this book is written it's almost as
if someone is telling you the story of
their life after they've already kind of
grown up a little bit. And so she kind of
just starts off talking about things
that happened in her childhood. Her
mother was addicted to drugs. She didn't
know who her biological father was. Her
stepfather was around kind of but he
also had some drinking and drug problems
as well. They didn't have a whole lot of
money growing up. They often went hungry.
A lot of times in order to eat they went
to like their neighbor's house, things
along those lines. And then you sort of
like see like all of these different
events that occur to her and her friends
in this neighborhood. And you watch her
basically just like grow up. She does
pretty well in school and ends up going
to a school on the west side of town,
which is the nicer part of town, and she
starts to see even more like the
disparity between herself and these
other kids who have always grown up on
the west side of town and been around
certain privileges and things along
those lines. And all in the midst of this,
there is this sort of story of her also
being wizard kind of. So the way this
book is like marketed and pitched makes
it sound like this is like a fantasy
novel. So like even on the front it says
like, "the remarkable story of a teenage
wizard." And when I picked up the book,
I was expecting like a fantasy book where
maybe it was set in our current world or
something along those lines but you know
there's this person who is a wizard
and you expect it to be sort of like magical
and things like that. That is a not what
this book is and I feel like a lot of
people are gonna jump into this with
incorrect expectations for this book.
This really feels like a contemporary
book but it has fabulism elements
woven into it. And so the way this book
is structured, the magical elements are
like real but they're also mostly a
metaphor. Echo Brown comes from a line of
wizards basically. She gained this
ability from her mother and she also
eventually learned that there are other
wizards around her and things like that.
But the way that the wizard system
whatever is set up is basically like if
black girl magic was a real thing. So
because of the difficulties and
circumstances that they're surrounded
with, it's almost like their internal
strength manifests itself into like
actual magic. So I kind of wanted to say
that off the bat because again the way
this book is marketed, like the summary
of it on Goodreads and everything along
those lines, that subtitle I just read,
makes it sound like this is like a
fantasy book but it's not. But I adored
this book and I really, really enjoyed
the way that it utilizes this like sort
of magical wizard idea in order to talk
about the strength that black women
specifically have. This book talks about
a lot of different things. And I can see
for some people it might be like a
little bit too much. Like I mentioned, her
parents are addicts, there's like one
point in time where there's like a fire
in their apartment and their mothers
passed out and they almost die. There is
discussions in here about rape and
sexual assault. There's discussions in
here about just like friendship and love,
about people dying really early because
of the circumstances of the neighborhood
that they live in. There's discussions in
here about depression and obviously
about like poverty and class structures
and things along those lines. But it also
is just like another coming-of-age story
where it talks about things like
friendship and love and falling in love
for the first time and crushes and things
along those lines. There's discussions in here
about colorism. The character Echo Brown
is a darker skinned black woman and so
she talks about-- and she has like kinky
hair and things along those lines and
she talks about how she feels like she's
ugly because of those things. I feel like
this book is like really just like
beautiful and powerful. It's
heartbreaking. It's completely
heartbreaking at times. I just like
wanted to cry at some of the events that
this character has to go through while
also like recognizing that this is a
thing that there are a decent amount of
people that have to go through this on a
regular basis. There's also like a really
unique way that this book is written.
Because Echo is a wizard, it goes into
more details in this book but basically
what she's kind of able to do is like
kind of stop time and also kind of like
time travel sort of. It's hard to
explain without like just going into
full details about the book. But it's
sort of like when something is happening
to her, she kind of like freezes time or
slows time down and then she sort of
like melds that with other memories that
she has. And sometimes those things are to
like influence the people that are in
that like current moment, and sometimes
it's a self preservation move, things
like that. But there's like this really
interesting way that Echo Brown writes
it, which I don't even know if you're
gonna be able to see on screen. But
basically she like puts these paragraph
breaks and there are like dashes in
between the paragraph breaks and it's
like one sentence kind of flows into the
next in those paragraph breaks. So it's
very like almost cinematic in a way. Like
while I was reading this book, I was like,
oh this would actually make like a
really cool scene in a movie. And it
happens multiple times throughout the
book and so every time I just kept
imagining it in my head in the way that
I could see like scenes fading in. And
out and kind of how if you watch like TV
shows and movies like one
character will be talking and then
another character will basically like
pick up from those last couple of words
and then they'll continue on in a
different way. And Echo Brown kind of
does that with this book. She kind of
goes back and forth in these waves with
these scenes and it's really like
beautiful and interesting and compelling
and I really enjoyed it a lot more than
I thought I would. Like
stuff like that can come off is like really
gimmicky. But to me I felt like it worked
so well. Like it perfectly blended
together the words and the scenes. So
that like at least in my head I could
see the scenes like fading in and out
from each other and I could see the
character sort of like talking together
but also like being completely separate
situations. And it was just really well
done and I think one of the reasons why
I love this book so much. Another thing
that I really enjoyed in here is this
idea of like intergenerational trauma.
One of the ways again that it manifests
itself is this idea of like how the
magic and Wizard lineage sort of
continues on. And I don't want to give
too much of that away but I feel like
this book does a really good job of sort
of talking about the ways that
intergenerational trauma is a thing and
effects you know everyone. And the ways
that like black women continue to be
oppressed and hurt in the same ways over
and over again, generation to
generation. So yeah, in the end I gave
this book a 4 out of 5 stars. I think
that the only thing that kept this from
being a 5 star book for me basically
just has to do with like how kind of
quickly it can move through things. Like
I said, it covers a lot of topics and it
all felt like very real and it all
impacted me but sometimes it just felt
like it was covering a lot of topics. So
yeah, this was almost a 5 star read for
me. I highly, highly recommend this book
especially if you're someone who likes
contemporary young adult books. But I
think that even if you don't typically
read young adult, you might enjoyed this
book a whole lot if you just enjoy
coming-of-age stories in general. So
those are my quick thoughts on black
girl unlimited by Echo Brown. Let me know
down in the comments below if you read
this book, what your thoughts were on it.
Or if you have any questions about the
book, feel free to leave that down below.
I felt like I was pretty vague in terms
of my like synopsis of the book but I
also felt like I had to be. I went into
this book pretty blind and I feel like
the less you know about it the better
off it is. And especially because I feel
like, again, the summary on Goodreads, it's
not like completely inaccurate but it
doesn't really do a great job of talking
about what the book is actually about.
I mean, like most summaries, they're just trying
to sell you on the book. So yeah I feel
like if this book piqued your interest
at all, just go into it
without knowing too much about it other
than like what I already told you. So
yeah, that's all I have for now and
thanks for watching.
