4.5 stars.

This is a wonderful memoir and I very much enjoyed it. It is written as a means to tell about Trevor Noah's childhood through a blend of personal anecdotes and cultural information about the years leading up to and just following the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa.

The writing is quite special and Noah's voice comes through clearly in the pages. It was a good balance between his humor and the harrowing circumstances of his youth in South Africa. He is very good at delivering things in a witty way, with a great sense for balancing the dark and serious with wry quips to lighten the impact. This made it easy to read through and grasp the full weight of the issues without the book simply being a depressing slog of a read.

I learned a LOT about South Africa that I was completely oblivious to. The racial disparities were shocking and the dangers of living there as anything other than white were gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.

I love how he wrote of his mother. She is clearly a very strong woman and someone he admires. His positivity, appreciation, and respect for her are genuine, lovely, and not usually what you see in celebrity memoirs.

Because of the structure of the book, the flow can sometimes be nonlinear in places and some of the chapters provide overlapping information. This was a bit confusing or frustrating in places, but easy to overlook for the most part as what was being presented was consistently powerful, informative, and important.

This was a great read told from a very unique perspective. Trevor Noah is an incredibly intelligent individual who clearly has a good heart and an amazing story to tell.