If Beale Street Could Talk was a book I expected big things from purely because of how influential a figure of civil rights and literature its author still is today and this book lived up to those grand expectations.

We follow the somewhat omnipotent narrator, Tish who is nineteen and pregnant. The father of her child is twenty-two year old Fonny who has been wrongfully convicted for a crime he didn't commit. Tish's family as well as Fonny's father Frank, battle a system of social injustice in 1920s Harlem to get Fonny out of prison.

This book was such a passionate, honest read. The romance between Tish and Fonny was conveyed beautifully with the utmost care. But beyond that, it looks at the black experience at large amidst crippling racial oppression and the people that work hard to thrive under these conditions.

The story took a while to get going so I felt slightly disillusioned going into it but by the end I felt like everything that happened had a purpose or a deeper meaning and I would absolutely read it again.