Trevor Noah is my favorite late night show host. I started watching Hasan Minhaj because of Trevor Noah! I had seen this book pop up in a lot of places but I only decided to read it recently.


In this beautiful book, Trevor Noah talks about growing up as a mixed race kid with a religious single mother in South Africa during and right after the apartheid. It made me laugh out loud, it made me tear up. It's a heartwarming book. He talks about himself, as a child, trying to fit in in a world that is designed to separate people. In the book he discusses his relationship with religion as well as his mother's devotion to God. He talks about growing up, his experiences as a teen, shares endearing stories about his family members. He sheds light on certain serious issues like crime, racial discrimination within the black and colored community in Africa, domestic violence and patriarchy through stories from his own life.

Trigger warning : It was traumatic to read the parts where he discussed growing up with a volatile, abusive and alcoholic stepfather.

The best part about this book is his relationship with his mother. I also admired how he said his story as it is. He had every chance to glorify the life he lived in South Africa and he did not. To me, it was more like he wrote the book to shed light on the circumstances that kids like him grew up in rather than talk about his own life.

Overall, a great read!