Cowritten by Malcolm X's daughter, this riveting and revealing novel follows the formative years of the man whose words and actions shook the world.X follows Malcolm from his childhood to his imprisonment for theft at age twenty, when he found the faith that would lead him to forge a new path and command a voice that still resonates today.
| This book paints a stark picture of Malcolm X's young adult life. It delves deeply into his troubled youth, touching on drug-abuse, hustling, and a variety of money-scheming crimes that eventually land him in jail. Not knowing much about Malcolm X's early life, I'd say this book certainly doesn't paint him in a good light until the final chapter. Most of the book feels like a deep descent into darkness and you wait for the shoe to drop, except it doesn't - until the very end. This book is targeted at a teen audience, but it would be difficult for me to suggest this book to just any teen - it is certainly geared for a teen who likes historical fiction and who really wants to see Malcolm X through his life as a young adult - there are very adult themes in this book, including, as mentioned before, drug-abuse, hustling, crime, sex, alcohol, and foul language (including the n-word). It's deep stuff, and it certainly is a cautionary tale, not a story for light reading or for a general curiosity in Malcolm X's biography. The writing is very well done, but the story doesn't feel like a story (it feels plot-less for most of the book and the ending is rushed and wrapped up clumsily). It's not a book I will re-read, but I can say that it wasn't a waste of my time to read this book. Perhaps reading Malcolm X's autobiography would be, in some ways, a better option, though. |
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