An interesting and thought-provoking book..

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A powerful thought provoking book that really makes you sit back and question many aspects that are raised.

Claudia Rankine does a great job in this collection of making the information both accessible but also providing the facts behind the topics that are being discussed.
It is also written conversationally to the reader and this helped not only with the flow of the book but also the emotion. You could feel Rankine through this pages with honestly and heart.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a insightful/really important book that everyone should read, touching on racism, sexism and so much more!! Such a powerful book that makes you think !

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for making this available..

This was an informative and important book. I expected something different with this book especially with the topic and the added poetry but I just didn't feel it all that much.

*Disclaimer: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Citizen by Claudia Rankine is one of my favourite books of the past few years so I was keen to pick up something else by her. Rather than poetry, this book is largely made up of essays with a few poems interspersed throughout.

Claudia Rankine’s writing style is quite academic at points so I’m sure I would get more out of it on a reread but I really enjoyed the reading experience overall. All of the essays discussed issues of race, particularly in America, from incidents of racism to the beauty standards set by white culture. The book opens up discussions on racial biases in children, skin lightening procedures, black women bleaching their hair and so many more topics that I knew happened but knew nothing about.

Overall Rankine never ceases to impress and this is a book that I would love to revisit in the future. I would highly recommend this if you’re looking for something unflinchingly honest.

4 out of 5 stars!

Claudia Rankine's eloquent and intimate style of writing makes this book an enjoyable read, even as it deals with difficult topics. By bringing the reader into conversations Rankine has had with friends and colleagues about race in America, she creates a bond between us that allows us to feel her disappointment and hope at these conversations.
I particularly enjoyed the section of blonde hair, and what it signifies for WOC to dye their hair blonde. It was a fascinating insight into how a desire for blonde hair is perfectly innocent, and yet uncomfortably close to the white supremacist value of white superiority. Rankine has no answers to any of the questions surrounding race, but that is not the point of this book - it opens up a conversation between people of different races in order to understand each other better and create a hopeful dialogue.
I would recommend getting a physical copy of this book, as the format of the images and quotations can be very difficult to navigate at times on Kindle.

A powerful piece of (wonderfully written) prose that captures the weight and complexity of the experience of racism. Rankine focuses on the specific pain, confusion and fatigue that can result when negotiating racist interactions with friends, colleagues and strangers. Rankine's self-analysis is extremely insightful. Perhaps most unique of all in Rankine's text is her inclusion of reflections by her friends in response to the events she discusses. The openness, imperfectness and, sometimes, unresolvedness of these exchanges demonstrates just how difficult it is - and will be - to overcome the entrenched structures of racism. In so doing, she shows that the issue of racism is far greater than any person, but felt acutely by every individual for whom it is an everyday violence.

An incredible work of honesty and compassion. Adapting her style more to the prevailing memoir/personal essay mode, Rankine's book challenges without hectoring; presents facts without alienating; and offers sensible solutions to the problem of racism without resorting to utopianism. 'Just Us' is incredibly clear-eyed, and like her groundbreaking 2015 work 'Citizen', I can imagine returning to this book again and again.

This is a poem collection. I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. Mostly because the poems were short.

Poignant piece of literature, as always. The combination of visuals with the almost lyrical exploration of white society is breathtaking.

Claudia Rankine has done it again. This book is a collage of essays examining racial tensions in the US. Rankine is remarkably vulnerable and reminds us why she is one of the greatest living writers in the world on every page of this book.

I’ve been aiming to read more anti-racist work in recent months to better myself, and Claudia Rankine’s Just Us has had one of the greatest effects on my way of thinking. This is a must-read for us all.

I was fortunate enough to read Rankine’s Citizen whilst on an American Literature course at university, so was anticipatory of Rankine’s newest work. Like Citizen, Just Us effectively and powerfully utilises images and footnotes to add to the reader’s understanding: both prose and picture highlight any point being made. Rankine also often asks herself (and us) questions; she too is learning and realising. There is a real presence taking us through the book as Rankine discusses personal experiences alongside these questions and highlighting of our racist society. The New Yorker review of Just Us describes this line of questioning as “needlessly caressing” and “insincere” which I wholeheartedly disagree with. Anti-racism understanding is something that we all must figure out, and one must question themselves every step of the way. Just Us is just as much for Rankine’s (self-) education as it is ours. The book is more of a probe, than a full exposé: which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Just Us is wonderfully and impeccably researched. Statements are fact-checked, everything is referenced, information is provided on where to source the essay or experiment being discussed, and even further reading is suggested. There are also points made that I have never read anywhere else or even thought about before. This made for a thoroughly thought-provoking read which certainly lends itself to my understanding of racism and how to recognise it. A battle cannot be fought without proper knowledge of the enemy after all. Most examples may be US-centric but they can be applied globally, so don’t be put off if you’re not American.

Furthermore, facts and analysis are startlingly up-to-date e.g. the book discusses COVID and the disproportionate figures in death rates between Black Americans and White Americans. The reader is educated of the past, the present and the now.

I would therefore recommend Just Us for anyone trying to understand racism in society, and in themselves. This is a necessary read.

Claudia Rankine returns with Just Us - which urges us all to begin dialogue with one another to explore the issues of white supremacy, race and white privilege. As everyday white supremacy becomes increasingly vocalized with no clear answers at hand, how best might we approach one another? Claudia Rankine, without telling us what to do, urges us to begin the discussions that might open pathways through this divisive and stuck moment in American history. Just Us is an invitation to discover what it takes to stay in the room together, even and especially in breaching the silence, guilt, and violence that follow direct addresses of whiteness. Rankine’s questions disrupt the false comfort of our culture’s liminal and private spaces―the airport, the theater, the dinner party, the voting booth―where neutrality and politeness live on the surface of differing commitments, beliefs, and prejudices as our public and private lives intersect.

This brilliant arrangement of essays, poems, and images includes the voices and rebuttals of others: white men in first class responding to, and with, their white male privilege; a friend’s explanation of her infuriating behavior at a play; and women confronting the political currency of dying their hair blond, all running alongside fact-checked notes and commentary that complements Rankine’s own text, complicating notions of authority and who gets the last word. Sometimes wry, often vulnerable, and always prescient, Just Us is Rankine’s most intimate work, less interested in being right than in being true, being together. An accessible, eye-opening and essential read for those interested in the issues of race, white supremacy and white privilege. Written in a conversational style, this is a powerful, insightful and thought-provoking book; and that is exactly what Rankine had in mind when writing it. Highly recommended.

This book was reviewed as part of my September Reading Wrap Up on YouTube https://youtu.be/pqwJ03pbVoM

It was also featured in a book haul https://youtu.be/xAktKDEkfIk

I absolutely love Claudia Rankine. Her previous book was one of my favourites till date and I was much excited about this one. I really love how the book proceeds but I felt it little flawed compared to all she has ever written.

Otherwise the book is worth a read.

I previously read and loved Citizen and Don't Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine so was very excited to read Just Us by the same author. Just Us feels much more personal and intimate than Rankine's previous books did. She brings us along as she carries out conversations with friends, colleagues and strangers about race in America. She confronts white people with their privilege and is at times disappointed by the responses she receives but always remains open. Ultimately, I think that is what this book invites its readers to do. Rankine is asking us to start conversations about race with people in our lives and see where it takes us. In doing so, we may learn something new, we may realise how far we have to go but we will at the very least be further ahead in the work of becoming an anti-racist world than if we remain silent.
I will add that if you are interested in this book, I would strongly recommend you get it in physical form. The book uses mixed media i.e. images, quotes, excerpts, tweets, emails etc. and I found that reading this on my Kindle I missed some of the power of having the images alongside the text as a direct comparison.
In the physical version, my understanding is the text appears on one side of the book with the images on the other side and that with each page turn you see the images in direct conversation with the text. I feel that not consuming the book in this format lessened my reading experience slightly so I will definitely be getting a physical copy of this so I can revisit this work and see if reading it in this format enriches my experience in any way.

A mix of poetry, essays and memoir on the topic of white privilege and systematic racism. This book is timely but would be an essential read regardless. Highly recommend, and if you get a chance to read any other of Claudia Rankine's books, do.

This book was incredible. Claudia Rankine has created a text that mixes poetry, academic writing and the essay with mixed media - directly quoting tweets and other sources to hammer home again and again the microaggrassions baked into our world and the systemic racism they serve to reinforce.

As beautiful and devastating a book as any of Rankine's. Rankine has completely revolutionised our understandings of what poetry and non-fiction can be in the 21st Century, and Just Us really continues this vein. I loved it.

An apt title for an almost conversational book - Rankine drifts between topics but in an intentional manner, with skill and ease - this is a thought-provoking and timely read on race and anti-racism in contemporary America. A medley of poetry, academic research and more anecdotal conversations Rankine has with friends and contemporaries, I found this accessible and stimulating and would recommend it to others looking for a unique book on race.