Black Girls Must Die Exhausted

By Jayne Allen

🩵🩵🩵🩶.

A comfortable read with dialogue that made me feel present in everyday life.

"The air between us pregnant in the way that I was not. Heavy with the words spoken and the weight of those unspoken."

How refreshing to have read a Black author's work and not have it feel unnatural, not too forced or over edited or extra colored to appease (pun VERY intended), but to be real and raw and authentic. To feel and resonate with the innerworkings of Tabby's The narrator, or in this case more of a voice actress, ___ did a good job of capturing the feeling and emotions connected to each though and conversation.

"...he couldn't be trusted. And because he couldn't be trusted and I still loved him, I couldn't be trusted."

As a working Black woman named after her grandmother, with reproductive health obstacles, trying to navigate young adulthood, identity, finances, career goals, adult friendships, complex family dynamics, grief, mental health, and dating in the 21st century, I felt as though I was going through like alongside Tabby - sharing in her frustrations and realizations.

I wish that the story had a bit more depth to it, but then again in was still such a realistic portrayal of the balancing act Black professional women must perform: family, love, friends, work, self. In some conflicting clarity, maybe this is why the book felt so natural and un-suspenseful to me - I face the obstacles and struggles in this book in my own life, they are too familiar, too realistic, too ingrained in my to be exciting or novel or entrancing. Please don't get me wrong, the book was still an entertaining read, and I do enjoy reading works that I can identify with.

"...these folks who had lived so much life, now found themselves doing many of the same things we used to do as kids, when we had lived no life at all ... we work our whole adulthood just to get back to who we could've been in the first place."

I think what I'm trying to say is that the story felt light, but as I re-read what I've written, I realize I have simply become numb to the weight of it all: the heaviness and exhaustion we as Black women are so used to carrying. It begs in my mind the question of what the experience of reading this book would be like for someone without my intersecting identities; how real would it feel? How eye-opening? How relatable? I am intrigued as to how the next books in the series would live up to this one but I also don't think I was hooked in enough to continue with Tabby to the next one: there is a lack of mystery, of wondering, unpredictability to entice me as I already know how these stories turn out (I'm living one of them myself).

The writing and narration alone get a solid 4/5, but the book and the feelings it emits bring it down to a 3.5.

Audiobook: 10h 32m

Read: 4.23.24 - 5.24.24 (stupid Spotify listening limit)

🩵: x/5 stars 🩶: half stars 💥: spice/sexiness 🤯: twists/surprises