Gorgeous cover but lackluster reading experience. Nella is exhausting with her overthinking and long-windedness. I don’t know how to put it, but the most miniscule actions have Nella wax poetic. Loose Ex: “When the Uber came to pick me up, I was reminded of my ancestors who often had to walk for miles when they were enslaved.” I’m all for acknowledging the ancestors and the strides Black people make today, but it comes off clunky and awkward here. 

 Ultimately, there was too much telling and the dialogue was often dry. I felt like this story overexplained things like the popular “paint by numbers: this is what racism and microaggressions look like” YA books. The story’s slow-paced with every detail dragggged out, so I was tempted at some points to drop. But I liked the insider’s view of publishing. You never know what editors have tried to call out things in poor taste/problematic stuff and got shot down. 

 At first, the other povs were disorienting, but I eventually came to understand and enjoy them. The backstory behind Nella’s favorite editor was good. The whole OGB resistance was interesting (tho their efforts are a bit misdirected) though it gets lost in the midst of “there can only be one TOKEN here, and it ain’t you!” fighting. The horror/thriller(?) elements are very subtle in the form of paranoia. Like, the fear of the unknown, in the workplace, when someone of your same background comes and you don’t know if you’ll be super close or if they’ll be throwing you under the bus to look good to the boss. 

I do sympathize with Nella’s struggles working in publishing. There are a lot of controversy and politics in the publishing industry and a lack of systematic change. Nella struggles with hyperawareness of her blackness and the need to overcompensate. She’s always justifying herself and measuring herself to Hazel, and, while it’s certainly understandable, it’s not fun to read. Maybe that’s the point, how these environments and lack of diversity can be stifling? 

While I understand her narrative, Nella just isn’t interesting. She was mad bland and her friend Malaika was just kinda there for a pep talk. I would’ve enjoyed if the story zeroed more on Nella being targeted at Wagner. It takes a LONG time to get to the meat of the story though I liked the ending for the most part. I wanted less ruminating about Owen and Vera and more about Hazel and the OGB network.  

Now, this story is getting a HULU adaption, so maybe things will translate better on the screen. To end on a positive note, again, I loved the cover, the backstory between Kendra Phillips and Diana Gordon, and

the slow reveal of who Hazel really is.

 

On a deeper level, The Other Black Girl touches on a lot of things:

white men at the top pulling the strings while minorities, Black ladies in this instance, fight for a place at the table, outspoken Black people being made out to be crazy for not kowtowing to the tptb, Tokens who kiss up to the higher ups and alienate themselves from their coworkers, all skinfolk and ain’t kinfolk, trying to make a change but realizing it’s futile because it has to come from the top, how palatable Blacks are not seen as a threat, and a tried and true method to go up in a lot of industries, READ the labels on anything you ingest or put on your body, publishing talks a big game but things still haven’t really changed, how relieving it is to see another Black face/person from your culture in a super white area and how you gravitate to them consciously/unconsciously, and how that new person doesn’t always value that same comradery with you, how exhausting the workforce can be, etc!