I hadn't realised this was a Christian book but despite that I thought it was a good read. A heartfelt, open and caring memoir full of inspiration.

"Unspoken" by Guvna B is a powerful memoir that reveals the artist's journey from adversity to triumph. Guvna B's storytelling is both candid and inspiring, as he addresses issues of race, faith, and identity. His narrative is an eloquent reminder that words have the power to heal and transform lives. A compelling and thought-provoking read.

An inspirational and down-to-earth autobiography and an extremely rare and frank exploration of toxic masculinity and the role of the patriarchy within it. Fascinating, well researched and compelling, this book gets the balance right between biographical aspects and wider male societal issues, including how these problems and prejudices affect how women are often treated. A captivating surprise of a book that I couldn't have predicted coming from a public figure like Guvna B.

When I stumbled upon Unspoken by Guvna B on NetGalley, I couldn't resist requesting a copy. I was already familiar with Guvna through Josh and Olie's YouTube channel Korean Englishman, and I knew this book would be something special.

This memoir is a powerful and deeply inspiring exploration of a young black man's journey to confront toxic masculinity and redefine what it means to be a man. Guvna B, acclaimed as a rapper who breaks stereotypes within the genre, shares his personal experiences and the lessons he's learned in the wake of profound loss.

Growing up on an East London council estate with Ghanaian parents, Guvna, also known as Isaac, was conditioned to believe that showing emotions and vulnerability was a sign of weakness. But when his father passes away unexpectedly, Isaac is forced to confront his own grief and battle depression. With the unwavering support of his wife, Emma, he seeks counseling and learns that asking for help is an act of strength, not weakness.

Through mentoring young people and advocating for support systems, Guvna passionately highlights the importance of protecting and empowering vulnerable individuals. He openly shares the comfort he finds in his faith and challenges societal norms that perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Unspoken is an essential narrative that resonates with young men in particular, and I firmly believe it should be included as part of social and emotional education in schools.

This book is an eye-opening and necessary read that sheds light on the struggles faced by many young men today. Guvna B's story is one of resilience, growth, and the power of breaking free from societal expectations. Prepare to be moved, inspired, and challenged to reevaluate your own perceptions of masculinity.

Raw, real, gripping, gritty, hard to read. This was a book that is hard to read as Guvna B has been brutally honest which is good to be real,
Highly recommend this book

3.5 stars for mixed feelings, rounded off to 4.

I picked up this book because I was interested in hearing about toxic masculinity from a man. While Guvna B does talk about it, to me, he does so briefly and with significant reticence.

I thought this book was mainly about grief, and I appreciate that, having myself suffered some major losses over the past few years. I hugely appreciated the first half of the book where he tells of the loss of his father. I couldn't stop turning the pages.

The second half lagged a little. I felt that the author didn't really tell his story. He says he went to therapy but doesn't bring me into the room with him, nor into the depths of the issues he was confronted with. I understand the need to protect the privacy and dignity of one's loved ones, but the result was that I didn't feel his feelings, and at times this book read more like an essay than a touching story about a man's journey from toxicity and despair to healing.

This was the first book I ever requested when I joined Netgalley. I don't know why it has taken me this long to read. I think because I am not usually a big non fiction reader it always got bumped in favour of a fictional tale.

I am so glad I finally got to it though, it was such a strong heart felt tale. I hadn't heard of Guvna B before reading this, but since reading I have hunted for his music and I have to say I really enjoy the songs he makes!

This book is about a brave man sharing his experiences with grief, mental health and the choices he has made. It is extremely eloquently written. His voice jumps off the page and I feel privileged to have been able to read about his journey. His words are so thought provoking and inspiring, I think everyone who reads this will find some element that they can relate to. I hope that Isaac is able to inspire the young people he has set out to help and encourage everyone, men especially, to be open and honest and talk about how things are affecting them.

Thankyou for your strong and powerful words. Keep up the work @guvnab there will be a lot of people who will be inspired and helped by your truth.

Unspoken explores complex issues that are facing many young people and men (toxic masculinity, grief, and coming of age). Some of the topics are quite deep and I think this would suit Young Adults. I’m not particularly religious and this is a theme but done in a balanced way and can be enjoyed regardless of your faith. I’m not the target audience as a Black women in her 30’s but I found the book insightful as a mother of a young Black son.

It’s well written and an easy read that I enjoyed and although I couldn’t see the pictures quoted I enjoyed how Guvna B incorporated his lyrics to tell his story and share his thought process with some of his songs and social media post.

Overall an inspiring read that touches on grief, communication, love and self acceptance.

I found this honest and raw account gripping. Would have no hesitation in recommending.

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

Interspersed with Guvna B's own lyrics as well as his Instagram posts (unfortunately only the captions made it into the digital ARC; I assume the pictures made it into print?), reading Unspoken: Toxic Masculinity and How I Faced the Man Within the Man felt like sitting in Isaac's (Guvna B's real name) living room, listening to him ramble on about life, grief, faith, and therapy.

It may seem a little weird that I picked this up for review (thanks Netgalley!) since I am not black, British, or male. I don't even listen to his songs; I find rap music a little weird. But the church I attended in Uxbridge had invited him to one of their youth events in 2019 (which is how I remembered the name), so I was a little curious.

The super-long title makes it sound like it's going to be this thesis, but the book reads more like a memoir, with Isaac dropping all pretensions, even his stage name. It centres around his upbringing on a council estate in East London and his grief at the loss of his father and two close friends in the span of two years. It's also mixed up with race relations in the UK, clashes of cultural and familial expectations, and the burden of fame, to some extent. Yet it's conversational and extremely relatable, like an elder brother sharing a personal story.

Some quotes I found super relatable even as someone who's not anywhere near the book's target market:

[For the Asians (lol)]
I was comprised neither of flesh nor blood but of parental aspiration...


[For the artists]
I now know that what was happening was that I was trying so hard to put out what I thought people wanted to hear, without ever stopping to ask myself what I wanted to say, what was in my heart...
I started comparing myself to other people, which made me feel even worse.
Advice to anyone reading this: Never compare.


[For grieving Christians]
'Within modern Christianity,' [Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury] said, 'we are really bad at lament and protest; really bad at saying, this is terrible, this is wrong, this is awful; and we're really bad at saying, "God I am really mad about this. I am so angry about this. God, I think you've let me down".'
What the psalm teaches us is that it is okay to rage against God, even though it does not come easily to us. It is better to rage against him than to shut him out completely.
In showing our true selves to God, he can reveal his true self to us. That is why lamenting and protesting in times of deep pain is as important as praising and celebrating in times of happiness. Learning to lament and protest is a journey towards better understanding God's love.


To be honest, while the storytelling prose is what makes the book, there were times when it felt like the author rambled on too far and then came back again with an, "oh yes, this was where I was going with this story". At the end of it all, he ties all the stories and the almost-devastation that came from those tragic events back to his own response, which was:

This ingrained sense of masculinity led me to believe that the only emotion permissible for me to reveal was rage. I could be angry, upset, hurt, or sad and then punch something, because that is what men did. Bare my teeth. Tighten my fist. Either that or grin and bear it. Handle it. Withstand the pain.


Overall, Unspoken is lyrically written, honest and heartfelt.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from [] via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Isaac Borquaye (Guvna B) is a British man of Ghanaian descent. He grew up in a culture where masculinity was defined as not letting your feelings out in public and that any outward show of grief or anxiety denoted weakness.

This 'toxic masculinity' reared its head most significantly when Guvna's father died after a short illness and he found himself struggling to deal with the reality of his loss and the emotions it brought forward. For a long time, he found it impossible to open up, even to his wife, because he thought he needed to deal with his feelings alone.

This book chronicles how Guvna learned to accept his emotions and be open with them, the people he loves and who love him. It references his faith and his music, as he has found success by writing and performing. He uses his faith and music to reach out to young black men in particular and let them know it's okay to not be okay.

Guvna also talks honestly about the negative stereotypes that lead to young black men in particular being criminalised. Not all violent crime is perpetrated by people of BAME (black and minority ethnic) backgrounds and yet this is the type of crime we read about most, which also promotes the feeling among young BAME men that they are being targeted and can often lead to a violent response.

Young people have a lot of conflicting pressures to deal with and are often seeking an identity. If they find this in a negative environment it can potentially lead to them ending up in prison or losing their lives. Guvna has clear ideas about how the negative cycle can be broken but is realistic about how difficult this is. His work to help young people find a positive voice is to be applauded.

I enjoyed connecting with Guvna and will take time to listen to some of his music. The lyrics reproduced in the book are honest and thought-provoking and his music deserving of a wider audience. A lot of rap and associated music forms channel negative themes, whereas Guvna seeks to be positive and look at the wider picture.

Hopefully, more people will pick up and read this book. For anyone struggling with mental health issues, or who knows someone who is, this is a recommended read.

I received an ARC of this book from HarperCollins UK, in return for an honest appraisal.

An admirable, humbling effort by the artist and now, author, GuvnaB to shed light on the complexity of grief.

It's part-memoir, part-guide to life as a Londoner...a young Black man...a humble soul...a husband...a person. We don't always know the words to say, or what to do to help those who are grieving. We don't always know how to cope ourselves. This book helped to share the reality from the perspective of someone who lost not one, but three loved ones within a short space of time. The differences in emotive processing between all three, and how each taught him something more about himself and humanity.

The writing style is a little sketchy, dancing from poetic to coach-ey, to somewhat prophetic/political at times. However, even he admits his style of writing isn't intended to be prosaic.

Good effort.

The author of this book, Guvna B, is an East London Christian rapper and his stated motivation to write this book is to discuss toxic masculinity and its negative effects on all including, if not especially, males themselves. The death of his father, followed closely by the death of other people close to him, force the author to face his emotions and learn how to be aware of them and manage them.

Guvna B's style is very readable and colloquial therefore approachable to a wide audience particularly for a younger audience which is perhaps the target here. While I appreciated the book and the author's honesty and genuine handling of the subject matter, I couldn't help thinking I probably wasn't the intended reader of this book and therefore found myself to a degree neither particularly enlightened nor interested in some of the detail (e.g. the frequent use of social media extracts to illustrate the narration).

All in all though I think this book has a place on many people's shelves and the world is better off for it having been written.


Many thanks to HarperCollins UK, HarperInspire and NetGalley for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Toxic masculinity is a concept that I have only a vague awareness of, but I decided that 2021 was the year that I needed to educate myself on a number of matters, and this brutally honest memoir from Guvna B seemed a good place to start.

Isaac’s faith is a strong theme throughout the book, so if this isn’t something you are comfortable with then this may not be the book for you. Personally, it made me wish that I could be even half as strong in my own faith as he is. The warmth of his personality shines through in his writing along with his commitment to helping people. I am a long way from the target audience, but I found him so relatable and it really felt like I was talking to a trusted friend. I think it was this instant familiarity that meant parts of this book completely and utterly destroyed me, to the point that my chest hurt through crying.

I don’t know what drew me to this book. As a white, 40 something female I could hardly be further from the target audience, I am not a fan of rap, had never heard of Guvna B before, and my faith is on somewhat shaky ground. But, something made me pick it up to read and the words within went right to my soul and the grief that I still feel after the loss of grandmother. Guvna B is a man who cares passionately about making things better for today’s teenagers, showing them opportunities and guiding them to live the best lives they can and frankly we need more people like him in this world.

I know I am not the target audience for this book as a retired white woman but I found it fascinating to have an insight into a life I will never likely cross with. Guvna B is a young black rapper who tells an honest and moving story of growing up on a Council estate in London and the rules he felt he had to live by. The story is the fact that somehow he found the strength and the faith to fight against expectations and create his own life and his own definition of success.

I enjoyed the book more than I expected to. There were surprisingly many universals in the story of life growing up poor with family and society expectations. Even though my parallel was being a gay female growing up poor in the west of Scotland. The book is a story of breaking stereotypes and making your own life with your own rules and I’d recommend it to anyone who feels cynical about today’s “young people” because this book is full of hope.

I was given a copy of the book by Netgalley.

Toxic Masculinity: “cultural concept of manliness that glorifies stoicism, strength, virility and dominance, and that is socially maladaptive or harmful to mental health.” So opens “Unspoken” by Isaac Borquaye, a first-gen Brit of Ghanaian descent, known to his fans as ‘clean rap’ artist, Guvna B.
Lacking the tools to deal with the grief he experiences at 27 when his father died, he questioned this stoicism and opened up through his music to reveal his defencelessness and was overwhelmed by the response from young men thanking him for showing it was ok to show vulnerability.

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book about Guvna B and his life.

A well written thoroughly modern autobiography that anyone growing up in an urban city can relate to. Touching and honest from the get go, so easy to read and made me feel as if I knew him personally.

An honest and insightful account of a young man’s experiences with toxic masculinity

Rapper Guvna B (real name Isaac Borquaye) grew up in a London council estate and as a result, always thought he was tough and immune to fear, sadness, and other ‘weak’ emotions. However, when a personal tragedy forced him into overwhelming grief, he discovered that his early years had conditioned him to ignore his emotions at the expense of his mental health. Despite believing he was expressing himself through his music, Guvna B realised that he was bottling things up and not being honest with himself and was forced to re-wire his thinking and confront his inbuilt ideas to overcome his depression. In this frank and perceptive memoir, he explores the reasons behind why so many young men are fearful of showing emotion, the damage this can inflict on individuals and society and his ideas for how this can be addressed.

This was an unusual but intriguing book that addresses a lot of interesting issues around mental health, grief and, of course, toxic masculinity – the misguided way that society expects men to behave in a certain manner, devoid of emotions, to demonstrate ‘toughness and strength. The effect this has on young men is undoubtedly negative, but very few men are willing to speak up or address the problem, mainly because the concept itself tells them this is ‘not what men do’. In this account, Guvna B takes these ideas and turns them on their head in what is essentially the open, emotional, and raw story of his life. He bares his soul to the reader and explains in a very insightful way why he thinks he felt the way he did at different time points and how he learned to address these feelings after experiencing loss. In itself, this level of self-awareness challenges expectations that society has of young men, and the author certainly has more self-awareness than a lot of much older men and women I know. As well as exploring his own experiences, Guvna B also puts forward some well thought out ideas on why the cycle of toxic masculinity is perpetuated, and what can be done to stop it. I must admit, I hadn’t heard of Guvna B before I received a copy of Unspoken but have subsequently listened to some of his music and he is an exceptionally talented, expressive young man whose lyrics are well thought out and often genuinely moving. His success is certainly well deserved.

My main problem with this book was that, despite being able to understand and appreciate the content, I didn’t fit the demographic that it was written for. As a white, atheist woman, some parts of it were slightly unrelatable to me – in particular, any reference to faith was quite difficult for me to engage with, having none myself. The narrative was also more of a personal account than a fully researched non-fiction work about toxic masculinity – it would have been interesting to have some other young men’s experiences included to broaden the scope of the book and emphasise the damage that repressing emotions can do to young people. Despite this, I still felt moved and impressed by the writing and enjoyed its conversational tone.

In conclusion, this was an enjoyable and extraordinary read that was powerful and moving in its openness. I sincerely believe that many young men would benefit from reading this book and even though my life is about as different from the author’s as it could be, I still appreciated reading it.

Daenerys


Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of this book to review.

A powerful, raw and honest look at Guvna B’s life. It was very eye opening and I hope a lot of young people get to read this. I’ve recommended it to the young people I know and will be purchasing copies for them, too!

The author, a Christian rapper, which is not a genre I'd come across before, talks honestly about his inability to cope when his father dies and his monolithic silence and refusal to ask for help - or cry - before that. He is very honest about how going to counselling made him feel and these aspects could be very useful for people to read. He's big on authenticity and sharing your feelings and feels a deep responsibility to young people, setting up various charity initiatives and podcasts, etc. The worry I have is that, as someone who states he doesn't read much and can only manage an 88-page book on grief, will his stated audience of the young, disenfranchised Black male work through these 288 pages? Maybe it will be best marketed and shared through a campaign of personal appearances (in whatever form) because he has got a lot of good, positive and practical stuff to say, and it would be a shame to see this book bought but not read.

Full review here: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2021/03/30/book-reviews-two-works-of-autobiography-rebecca-front-curious-and-guvna-b-unspoken/