Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Hear the dark liquor of her laughter rippling behind her sentences” in this magnetic memoir as it explores a journalist’s obsession with pop culture and the difficulty of navigating relationships as a Black woman through fanfiction, feminism, and Southern mores (Saeed Jones).
Pop culture is the Pandora’s Box of our lives. Racism, wealth, poverty, beauty, inclusion, exclusion, and hope -- all of these intractable and unavoidable features course through the media we consume. Examining pop culture’s impact on her life, Nichole Perkins takes readers on a rollicking trip through the last twenty years of music, media and the internet from the perspective of one southern Black woman. She explores her experience with mental illness and how the TV series Frasier served as a crutch, how her role as mistress led her to certain internet message boards that prepared her for current day social media, and what it means to figure out desire and sexuality and Prince in a world where marriage is the only acceptable goal for women.
Combining her sharp wit, stellar pop culture sensibility, and trademark spirited storytelling, Nichole boldly tackles the damage done to women, especially Black women, by society’s failure to confront the myths and misogyny at its heart, and her efforts to stop the various cycles that limit confidence within herself. By using her own life and loves as a unique vantage point, Nichole humorously and powerfully illuminates how to take the best pop culture has to offer and discard the harmful bits, offering a mirror into our own lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Perkins (Lilith, but Dark), a poet and former cohost of the Thirst Aid Kit podcast, examines religion, Black womanhood, desire, and sexuality in this powerful work of cultural criticism. She cleverly illustrates how pop culture has the power to shape, break, and illuminate the stories people tell about themselves and their intersecting identities. In one essay, "Kermit the Frog," she reflects on her childhood love of Miss Piggy, only to understand as an adult that the "felt porcine femme" was abusive toward Kermit and, in that way, created a warped mirror of the domestic violence she witnessed between her parents growing up. In "I Love Niles Crane," Perkins aspires to experience a divine love, in which a man "think my presence is a blessing from on high." Meanwhile, she connects her earliest feelings of desire to Prince's "Girl" ("the nastiest, sexiest song I'd ever heard in my life") and reminisces on how she learned "what was possible in Black college life" from the Cosby Show spin-off, A Different World. Writing from a place of humility and humor, Perkins paints an exuberant portrait of a Black woman speaking to and from her power. Tender and bright, this intimate work piques nonstop.
Customer Reviews
Ok read
This memoir is sort of lighthearted and entertaining. If you’re looking for something to aspire you then this book isn’t for you. This book was 90% of author bragging how good her poom poom is, 5% College & career, and 5% about her upbringing.