Review to come. Need some time to process

8/29/20

Thank you to NetGalley and Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins for the ARC.

Reading does not occur in a vacuum. I can't pretend that there weren't many outside events that affected my reading experience of this book. This book made me feel angry, frustrated, heartbroken, and hopeful all at once.

Anger at the American justice system, which is not just at all, most especially to Black men and boys. While reading Punching the Air, I have also been listening to The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. Amal's experience (and that of Yusef Salaam in real life) are portrayed almost exactly in The New Jim Crow. We have a justice system that rewards Black people for falsely declaring guilt and punishes them for telling the truth. A system that targets Black people because of false data and learned prejudice.

Frustration because, as we have seen over and over again in 2020, nothing has changed. The Exonerated Five, innocent Black boys, were targeted by a racist policing system in 1989. In 2020, innocent Black men are still being targeted by racist police. Most recently Jacob Blake, who fortunately was not killed, but may remain paralyzed for the rest of his life.

Heartbroken because for Black people the pain never ends. I found out about the death of Chadwick Boseman while I was finishing this book, and while it was very difficult for me to read about a Black man stolen in his prime from a vicious disease, I can't even imagine how painful it is for Black people to suffer yet another loss. This year alone has taken Kobe Bryant, John Lewis, and now Chadwick Boseman. All beacons of hope for not just Black people but for the world.

Hopeful because this book is necessary. It is important. It will be life-changing to some. It is beautiful and lyrical and so, so timely. It is personal but also universal. It is full of despair but also full of Amal's truth. His truth is that he is innocent, and it is one thing that keeps him going.

There were many lines that jumped out at me where I knew whatever Amal was going through at that moment, it was also something that Dr. Salaam had experienced during his time of being unjustly imprisoned. There are lines that are so poignant that I know only a person who has gone through was Amal and Dr. Salaam went through would be able to write such powerful words.

I am glad this book exists and that hopefully many people will read these words, but I am also sad that we live in a world where this book must exist. It is impossible to read this book and not also consider how the same things that happen in the book happen to Black people in the real world. Are still happening every day. But it is also impossible to forget that every day there are people fighting and working and protesting to end the violence and police brutality that Black people have fought against for hundreds of years.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone.