"They have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world."

Coates writes a letter to his fifteen-year-old son, ripping open his heart as he delves into his lifelong journey to own his own Black body in an America built on the falsehood of race.

What. A. Writer. I have sped up many audiobooks in the past in an attempt to get through material that wasn't entirely gripping. Never before have I slowed one down. Until now.

Like Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns, this book should be required reading for all Americans. Coates's prose is raw, revealing, honest, and incredibly important. It is a boy's struggle to understand the world he lives in, it's a young man's recognition of constraints particular to those who look like him, it's a grown man's awareness of how to ensure not only his survival but that of his child. It's a love letter from a father to his son.

The U.S. is facing a reckoning of the atrocities it was founded on, injustices that have morphed and changed over the years but still endure. I deeply appreciated the first-hand glimpse Coates gave me into his perspective and will absolutely be reading this book again.