Blackass: A Novel | 
"Private provision of public services had turned everyone into judge and executioner and turned everyone‘s backyards into industrial wastelands. Every man the king of his house, every house a sovereign nation, and every nation its own provider of security, electricity, water. Lagos was a city of millions of warring nations."
"As they tramped past the silent houses, the crunch of sand beneath their shoes sounded like ghouls in conversation."
"Furo Wariboko awoke this morning to find that dreams can lose their way and turn up on the wrong side of sleep."
No one asks to be born, to be black or white or any colour in between, and yet the identity a person is born into becomes the hardest to explain to the world.
Furo was asked this question at a job interview. What would be your answer? I read Jacqueline Woodson‘s Another Brooklyn this morning and followed it up with Ragnar Jonasson‘s Snowblind.
My wicked ambitious February #TBR 😲 #blackhistorymonth #readingblackout #readsoullit #unreadshelfproject2018 #riotgrams #shelfie
#RiotGrams, Day 16: Today's prompt is "black books." ???
pickThe modern retelling of Kafka's Metamorphosis explores racism, perception, classicism, feminism, identity, and more in this novel about and by a Nigerian. Barrett is both witty and probing as he looks into what it means to be white in Africa.
Bedside books! What's on your nightstand? HAPPY #bookloversday 📚📖✨💜
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#getlit #eyreaffair #jasperfforde #beholdthedreamers #imbolombue #richandpretty #rumaanalam #hunger #roxanegay #atthedarkendofthestreet #daniellelmcguire #blackass #aigonibarrett #tiesthatbind #davidisay #storycorps #tbr #toread #nowreading #booksonthenightstand
#BIGYELLOWBALL a modern day take on the Kafka classic The Metamorphosis this book explores race in Nigeria. Very interesting premise and a swelteringly good novel.
For day 4 of #marchintoreading, I offer for your consideration "Blackass". Based on Kafka's The Metamorphosis, the protagonist in Blackass wakes up one morning in #Lagos to find himself transformed into a white man, with the exception of his ass, which remains black. What a premise, right? Imagine my disappointment when I realized the whole thing was about white privilege and nothing else. #didntlikeitstillfinished #blackauthors
so-so⭐️⭐️⭐️I was hooked in the beginning and was very interested to see how Furo would react to his unexpected transformation into a white man. He begins to take advantage of his newfound privilege. He abandons his family but claims "He has nowhere to go! There's no one else he can ask." ? Furo's personality transformation and fear of changing back into a black man was particularly interesting. In the end I nicknamed him: Furo the Fraud ????
New audiobook. I have a ton of reading to do. Why not add to the pile??
#riotgrams day 3: #onewordtitles. Currently starting this one-word title from my TBR pile. Appropriately enough, it was suggested by @Liberty and @rebeccaschinsky on the #AllTheBooks podcast last year.
My Favorite Books of 2016
No. 9: Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett. There is an edge, a fire, the beginning of trouble. This is Kafka for the Kanye generation.
I made the mistake of parking by the fiction shelves to try and get reading done for class. #diverseathon
#septphotochallenge Day 4: POC Author
Read this on a trip through the Deep South. Not even kidding, the guest room I stayed in had a rebel flag on display.
pickSo my initial impression was that this book was a little too on-the-nose retelling of The Metamorphosis, but my god, I'm glad I stuck through. Relevant and funny, insightful and strange and interesting, this book is a highlight and begs for rereading.
The shelf with some of the most recently-acquired books on my TBR list (which is approaching 600 books).
"I was finding out that appearances would always be the point of conflict. Male or female, black or white, the eye of the beholder and the fashion sense of the beholden, all of these feed into our desire to classify by sight." - Furo Wariboko
panI had high hopes but it just wasn't for me. Although there were metaphoric themes scattered throughout, I never became invested in the characters. The premise of a Nigerian man waking up to discover that he's now white however his "ass" remains black sounded intriguing but the story fell flat. 2?
#Blackass #jamreads
Another interesting beginning from today's massive book haul.
bailedI loved it in the beginning but couldn't finish it. It never seemed to go anywhere and there were too many convenient coincidences that drove the plot. The writing was great and I loved reading the rich descriptions of life in Nigeria but I just couldn't stay interested enough to finish it.
...we only see ourselves through external sources, whether as images in mirrors, pixels on the screen, or words on the page, words of love from a mother, words of hate from an ex-lover...I was already trying to say what I see now, that we are all constructed narratives.
Book mail! Very excited to have used my B&N Apple refund on these babies.
"But in this war of selves, I had switched sides. Despite the snake of maleness that still tethered me to the past, I was more than man, interrupted.
I was whoever I wanted me to be."
"The woman's curses were more colourful, her delivery more dramatic, and her well of invention ran deeper." She and I would be great friends!! Loving this book so far BTW. ❤️
pickEnjoyed this, as much for living in Lagos for a few days as for the satire. Best cover of the year, also.
panSo I won't call this a review- more of a VENT....the premise of the story pulled me in, Nigerian man (black) wakes up one day and he is white, all accept his backside. Does life in literally another skin mean more than when lived in the skin you were born in? Does it really matter?
so-soI have use the dreaded "it's probably not the book, it's me" here. I liked the writing and the concept a lot but I don't know if I missed some cultural cues since I didn't find this as satirically funny as I expected (mostly I felt frustrated by Furo's actions). Will revisit.
pickLove this book! Wicked funny :)
Brag Post for slow readers! Only finished five. One by a transgender woman, two by Authors of Color, if Salman Rushdie counts. Favorite was Blackass, where the author is male, but wrote himself into the story as a transgender female.
...he learnt how it felt to be seen as a freak: exposed to wonder, invisible to comprehension."
pickBlackass, with its black, Nigerian protagonist waking up in the body of a white man, immediately calls to mind Kafka's Metamorphosis, but this is something more. Race, politics, humor. There is an edge to Blackass, a fire, the beginning of trouble. This is Kafka for the Kanye Generation.
pickA young Nigerian wakes up to discover that, with the exception of his ass, which remains black, he‘s a red-headed white man. That is the sole reason I picked up this book and it did not let me down. Lagos comes alive in rich detail, a fleshed out character in its own right. —Rachel
pickReally thought provoking and fun, if unexpectedly dark at places. Most surprising, the author wrote himself in to the story as a transgender woman (in reality he is male) who hasn't undergone surgery -- thus making him female except for her MaleAss, a direct comparison. What would Rachel think?
