Symptomatic

Rating:
Summary: This year....it's about COLOR
Review: Wow! I have read no less than three powerful books about COLOR since 2004 began.

Of the three books--"Don't Play In the Sun" a memoir by Marita Golden, "Flesh and the Devil" a love story by African Kola Boof and Symptomatic a college lit piece by Danzy...I have to give the highest praises to Kola Boof's book, because it featured both the dark skinned and the lightskinned-nearly white plight as well as covered the history leading up to this problem and intricately focused on a bold solution by the African author..that we all just become black again, basically.

"Symptomatic" is very well written, and the first half of the book is fantastic and plays like real life, but the second half is kind of a cheap shot psycho story. I get the feeling the author didn't know where to take the book. No matter how she tried to avoid the "tragic mulatto" stereotype, that's really how I saw the heroine and her sicko friend GRETA by the time the book ended.

As for "Don't Play In the Sun", that was really good book but it didn't cover the issue of COLOR as well as the book "The Color Complex" did. It was OK. But again, I encourage everybody who is black,no matter what shade to check out "Flesh and the Devil" by Kola Boof. It's incredible and it's on point.

Save your money on "Symptomatic" and pick up Danzy Senna's excellent first book "Caucasia". Now that book definitely told the story in a good, powerful, truthful way.

Rating:
Summary: This year....it's about COLOR
Review: Wow! I have read no less than three powerful books about COLOR since 2004 began.

Of the three books--"Don't Play In the Sun" a memoir by Marita Golden, "Flesh and the Devil" a love story by African Kola Boof and Symptomatic a college lit piece by Danzy...I have to give the highest praises to Kola Boof's book, because it featured both the dark skinned and the lightskinned-nearly white plight as well as covered the history leading up to this problem and intricately focused on a bold solution by the African author..that we all just become black again, basically.

"Symptomatic" is very well written, and the first half of the book is fantastic and plays like real life, but the second half is kind of a cheap shot psycho story. I get the feeling the author didn't know where to take the book. No matter how she tried to avoid the "tragic mulatto" stereotype, that's really how I saw the heroine and her sicko friend GRETA by the time the book ended.

As for "Don't Play In the Sun", that was really good book but it didn't cover the issue of COLOR as well as the book "The Color Complex" did. It was OK. But again, I encourage everybody who is black,no matter what shade to check out "Flesh and the Devil" by Kola Boof. It's incredible and it's on point.

Save your money on "Symptomatic" and pick up Danzy Senna's excellent first book "Caucasia". Now that book definitely told the story in a good, powerful, truthful way.