The author of this memoir is a queer brown Indian immigrant who grew up in Appalachia.  I had honestly never seen a book from an author like her.  I knew I needed to read it.  And it was a fascinating and surprisingly relatable read.  

Neema moved to West Virginia when she was quite young and she describes her experience being one of very few brown and non-Christian families in a very white and very Christian neighborhood.  But despite these differences she talks about a rich network of neighbors who became in many ways very like an extended family.  Her memories of having snacks at a neighbors house and another neighbor helping her learn to play basketball and encouraging her were really great to read.  However, mixed in with these positive formative experiences are stories about how her fellow students spit on her, told her that her food smelled bad, and called her all manner of racial slurs and epithets.  

I found common ground in her stories about seeing hateful facebook posts from people she thought of as family.  How to react when a loved one posts pro-Trump things that support hateful rhetoric about people who are just like you?  What do you do with those feelings and that reality?  Neema tries to be understanding, considering the struggles that the posters have gone through that lead them to these thoughts.  I don’t think either of us have a perfect answer as to how to respond. 

Read This If You, like me, have never read a book from an author like this.  It was informative and really resonated with me.