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A review by mweis
Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
3.0
*I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
It is very clear that Alexis Pauline Gumbs is passionate about her work and is incredibly knowledgeable about the subject. That being said, I struggled a bit with the structure of this. Each section centers a segment of Audre Lorde's life but contains individual stories that don't always flow in a way that made sense for me. It made entry into this book feel a bit overwhelming when I was already a little overwhelmed by the sheer length of this book. While it began to flow better for me once we moved beyond Lorde's childhood, the reading experience never fully recovered from the choppy start for me.
That being said, I think there are parts of this that I will absolutely return to. Gumbs weaves Lorde's work with her personal life with the politics and current events of her time period (and beyond). Coming at this as someone with only surface level knowledge of Lorde, I think this work is meant more for those who are already knowledgeable about Lorde's poetry and the African diaspora and the intersection of Black, queer, feminist identities.
It is very clear that Alexis Pauline Gumbs is passionate about her work and is incredibly knowledgeable about the subject. That being said, I struggled a bit with the structure of this. Each section centers a segment of Audre Lorde's life but contains individual stories that don't always flow in a way that made sense for me. It made entry into this book feel a bit overwhelming when I was already a little overwhelmed by the sheer length of this book. While it began to flow better for me once we moved beyond Lorde's childhood, the reading experience never fully recovered from the choppy start for me.
That being said, I think there are parts of this that I will absolutely return to. Gumbs weaves Lorde's work with her personal life with the politics and current events of her time period (and beyond). Coming at this as someone with only surface level knowledge of Lorde, I think this work is meant more for those who are already knowledgeable about Lorde's poetry and the African diaspora and the intersection of Black, queer, feminist identities.