 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today we are talking about one of my most anticipated reads of the year The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Delilah Harris I'm not a hundred percent on that middle name, but I believe I got Zakiya, right? I wanted to read this because this synopsis sounded absolutely fantastic I will tell you right up front if you think this is your average thriller you are hello wrong This is not your average thriller most of it pertains to office politics I Please don't click away This book is fantastic. I don't know how Harris did it, but the oh man the the Everything that happens in this place in this office this publishing house is intriguing and engaging Somehow she made mundane everyday work life Well, it's not mundane to the characters of course for because what's going on But she she included that along with like not really an underground Club or anything like that really but I do want to I do want to Warn people who don't like speculative fiction There is some spec thick aspects to this book It is not your average thriller, but that's what makes the book so damn good I I hate to use this comparison because people say everything is like this anytime that the author is black It feels a lot like get out, but I actually enjoyed this more than I enjoyed get out The book handles Racism very well like I said office politics Climbing the ladder what people do to climb the ladder it they the way Certain people can hold other people down to better themselves While at the same time, you know, they're gaining trust. It's just the insidiousness of the scenario So you have this editor named Nella And you have she's the only black woman in the office and then you have a new hire the way the way the new the new hire Hazel May is Is introduced and the way the book ends is absolutely fantastic. That's all I'm gonna say It's all I'm gonna say about about the ending it everything comes full circle and it I had an oh moment because I You've never read anything like this. I promise you you've never read anything like this You might have read something Adjacent to it. That's very close to it But you've never read anything like this because the the quote-unquote twist at the end is just so weird I I never I never would have thought of it. Now. I want to talk about some stuff. It's gonna make some of you uncomfortable Especially probably the white people. I'm just gonna go ahead and say the white people out there this book deals heavily with the shady-ass white folks that We that we all know if you're if you're a decent human being you've seen these white people and you can't you can't tell me They don't exist the book is populated with these white people and Another thing is I of course am not black so I can't speak from that That experience and I don't claim to know anything about that experience So I went and I spoke with with my wife. My wife is black And she she gave she gave me very funny and also very disturbing Stories about when she worked for the Department of Transportation here in Montgomery, Alabama Being the only black woman in a group of all these white people And the the friends the the the friendly ones that would come. Hey bestie. How you doing? Oh Did you see the new black person that just got hired? There's some of that in this book I of course have never experienced that but to hear her tell those stories when she hasn't read this book It's feels like a universal concept if you're a black person and I I hate that For you guys, I don't know what else to say and that's why I I think I think personally Reading as diversely as you possibly can is the best way to open your mind And I know there's gonna be several of you out there that say I don't care what color what? Sex you're gonna get mad and it's fine get mad down there in the comments The simple fact is if you never read outside of your little bubble, that's all you're ever gonna know I mean, it's no secret Haruki Minakami even said if you only ever read one type of book, you're only ever gonna think one kind of way Or if you only read what everyone else is reading there's so on and so forth But I don't want to get too deep into the the whole I mean the whole books about you know race relations mostly though And I found this fascinating mostly within the black community. That's where the drama and everything really happens here Except of course for the the the publisher and I don't want to spoil anything. There's more there There's there's definitely the the white You know background, but for the most part, this is this is the the black community You know how they react to certain things that go on in these cultural situations or office settings or so on and so forth I'm gonna leave you with one anecdote It's not really a joke or anything. It's something that I found Interesting when me and my wife first talked we lived in Maine for two years Brewer which is right next door to Bangor. So I was like maybe 10 minutes away from Stephen King When we were talking about moving there, I brought up, you know that I wanted to move to Maine You know, maybe bump into the famous Stephen King that kind of thing and my wife looked at me and said There's no black people in Maine and I thought about that and I was like to have to consider Whether or not you're going to be comfortable living somewhere And we ended up there also we ended up there, but it had nothing to do with like forcing her to go She came over on the court and we were only there for two years and then we moved back down here but I I think that was one the very first time that it opened up my wide eyes to to look at how You have to be so very careful about where you go and what you do if you are not this shade I fucked up and I think that kind of started me down This road of you know trying to educate myself as much as possible and don't look for you know Black people or any other race or culture or any of that stuff don't look for them to educate you go out and educate yourself It's really really simple you just go out you find the stuff yourself. There are so many lists and I don't know There's loads of stuff out there for you to actually educate yourself. It's not their job to educate you anyways So that has been my diatribe on this book. It is absolutely fantastic I'm giving it five stars. I Stayed away from spoilers Because this one has one of the greatest twists It's but it's so weird too, and that's why it's it's so unique, you know It's not like who is the killer or anything like that. It's it's more along the lines of what is all what is going on here and It's fantastic. Please go out and read it for yourself This is one of those this is one of those special books. I don't I don't know how else to put it I've never read anything like it. So please go out and read it and if you have read it Please let me know down there in the doodly-doo what you thought about it whether or not you loved it Whether or not you hated it whether Whether or not you're mad about it, but tell me why you were those things why you loved it Why you hated it why you were mad so we can have a discussion down there in the doodly-doo But until next time I have any you have been you this has been another book review I'll talk to you guys later. Bye. Bye