Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thought this was stunning. The writing was all kinds of gorgeous.

I think it's a perfect companion piece to watching Do the Right Thing or reading Between the World and Me or The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism.

Note, each of these references are a bit more hardcore than the last. But it's all related.

After all my previous readings over the last few months, this is a perfect companion piece and a microcosm for what's been happening in America for hundreds of years. Particulars change, but the fundamental injustice remains the same.

In this particular book, written so well, we have some pretty conflicted psychology and super-powers that are more a fantastic spice to a story that is becoming increasingly more universal than an actual superhero tale.

Of course, with this much injustice, this much hate despite wanting to stop the hate, the REAL conflict is revealed. And it's not violence.

It's the pressure. We need to know it for what it really is. If we want to solve this problem, we need to recognize that we create our own hells. All of us.

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