Book Review: Between the World & Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World & Me is the first 5 star read I’ve had in a long time, but it deserves every single star. I first learned about Coates after he spoke at the Ohio State University this past spring. Before then, I’d only seen his name on Twitter and in the New York Times Bestsellers list, but knew that he was an influential writer & thinker in the black community. I also knew that he had some unconventional ideas, although I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. But after listening to him speak, I was immediately intrigued.

Coates is openly an atheist, openly skeptical about non-violent protest, and has interesting ideas about education and writing as a craft. Issues of race, history, and the body weave all of these topics together into one interesting perspective on the American tradition as a whole. While the focus of this book is black body anatomy, the entirety of the work presents a lot of other interesting ideas. Coates is a thinker on more than race because he understands the importance of an interdisciplinary approach. The Dream, as he calls the American experience (specifically for people ‘who think they are white’), is something that is woven together from different parts.

Coates has also been in the news recently for his testimony on Reparations in the United States Congress, which comes from a now-famous essay on…