About book The Black Girl Next Door: A Memoir (2009)
Jen lives with her family in a upscale all white neighborhood. Where 'fitting in' means everything to her, and 'staying black' means everything to her parents. She grows up trying to find the perfect balance and staying true to her heritage in a post-cival war era.My favorite part is that every once in awhile they will have a picture taken of the real Jennifer. If you are reading about when she was 9 and wearing some silly costume....there would be a picture from the actual day which made is more personal. Even though never stated, her family fell apart. Her parents tried their best in her early years. But as she grew up, her parents rarely gave her reasons for what they belived or wanted her to do. Her father started sliding and Jennifer had to physically defend herself on one of his bad days. When she was looking for colleges; she found the farthest one away and ran for it. The first half was a great eye opener to what kind of world she had to grow up in, but the last half was depressing when she found she would never truely fit in. In reviewing a memoir it is difficult to know how much of the story is part of a person's actual memory or recollection of their past and how much is history that was told to them over and over again so that eventually it becomes a part of that person's own memory. That thought aside, this memoir is an important socio-historical piece of what it means for a Black girl and her parents who are newly arrived "buppies" in California - the choices they make, the facades they feel they must wear, and the secrets they harbor to "fit in" and to become a model middle-class American family.
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Very interesting book. I couldn't put it down. I found it incredibly enlightening.
—unit5139
The memoirs of a young black Californian in the 70's and 80's.
—Sulaiman
