Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Why I Chose This Book
A. Trevor Noah is amazing, hilarious, and I wholeheartedly believe that his taking-over of the daily show was the best thing to happen to Comedy Central since Broad City, and B. I have long been interested in learning more about South Africa and life after the Apartheid era.
About the Book
Maintaining all the humor expected from someone like Trevor Noah, this memoir chronicles his life growing up as a mixed-race child under apartheid and his unique experience living as neither black nor white. It also goes on to cover his adolescence and his entry into the world of comedy, something that was largely non-existent in South Africa at the time.
Thoughts
Let’s be honest, there was no way I wasn’t going to love this book. But the way he covered so many heavy topics in a seriously light-hearted way and recanted his unique experience growing up was something I was not expecting. While it was a funny book by a funny comedian, it was a commentary on many deeper issues such as race, domestic violence, and conditions not only in South Africa but in the U.S. today.
Notable Quotes
“People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing.”