Sometimes I don't like story collections because they're uneven, but you know what? You can skip the ones that don't speak to you! I wouldn't say these stories are uneven in quality, which is uniformly high, it's just that one likes what one likes.

Ibi Zoboi sets the stage for what kind of book about Blackness this is going to be with this statement

If global Blackness had a rating scale of one to ten, the Haitian Revolution has got to be at level ten, being the most Blackest thing that ever happened in history.

That is a bold, stirring opening. The stories themselves aren't overtly radical. Unless you think living a Black life is radical, which apparently it is in the United States and other places in the world. Instead the stories are more intimate. They're not about police violence, protests, or other issues that provoke. A lot of them are about crushes and love because that's often the main thing teenagers are thinking about.