3.5 stars.
I always excited to get my hands on Ms. Marvel installments, and I particularly loved the sections in this volume that flashback to Partition and that part of the family's history. Also, there is this awesome science competition with very cool and somewhat dangerous inventions. The conflict between being a good superhero and being a good friend comes to a head with this installment, and it's always hard when you realize that your hero might not be worth all that worship. I also really liked the tie-ins to some current affairs, and the art is really good. I had some issues with the pacing of this one and don't love all the fight sequences, but I loved the Partition/Pakistan plot lines enough to round up. Rating: 4 stars.
108. Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
DNFed at 60%.
This book is much loved so I'll be swimming against the current, but that's never stopped me from being honest with my thoughts so here goes:
Let me first start by saying that I was a huge fan of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and when Trevor Noah joined I gave it six weeks before deciding he was just not for me. Something about him rubs me the wrong way, so I wasn't planning on picking up this book, especially since it was a memoir. Then my local book club selected it for this month and I decided to at least try, maybe I would be pleasantly surprised. That did not happen.
I did not know going in that this was a collection of "eighteen personal essays" which explains some of the somewhat disjointed style of this book. It was interesting to hear about this mother and the decisions she made, and this is clearly an ode to his Mom, but why would I care about any of this? While I did smile at some of the humor, I found myself mostly annoyed both with him personally and how he talked about his experiences. Was this a difficult childhood, sure, but so what? As someone who grew up in Kenya, there wasn't much he described that was new to me, and the fact that he talks about his "mischievous" acts where there were no consequences without a sense of regret was something I found deeply disturbing. The longer I listened the more unlikable he become, and when I got the section of his Matric dance when it suddenly occured to him that he and his date didn't even share a common language I called it quits.
I was completely blown away when almost half of the book club members "didn't know about Apartheid." How is that even possible? The group had a mixed reaction to the book, with many feeling that he left out significant bits about how he got to host the Daily Show for example. However, given that this book might be a way to introduce people to some of what happened in South Africa I'm glad Noah wrote it. I'm just clearly not the target audience.
I listened to the audiobook which is well narrated by the author. I did enjoy listening to his various accents as he switches back and forth between South African languages. I would not have read this far if I'd read it in print, but if you're a Trevor Noah fan, or somehow who doesn't know anything about Apartheid this might work better for you. Rating: 1 star
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