Very easy to agree with Toni Morrison’s cover quote of “this is required reading.” For a white American who likes to think of himself as socially conscious and racially aware (recognizing there’s obviously always way more work to be done in those areas), what really stuck out from this important book is the raw emotion of Coates. His ability to get the reader to empathize with both his loved experiences and those experience culturally and genetically passed to him from his ancestors over time (those experiences my ancestors were likely on the other side of) were guttural and powerful. 

The book flies by in his page turning prose but the impact of what he says slows you down because it commands that you stop and really consider the implications and take it all in. But the book is quick enough that, again, I must just echo Morrison: this is required reading— sadly more so today than even when first published.