Came into this after watching her viral speech, and so, so glad I had the audiobook. Incredible voice, narrator, and heart.

How We Can Win by Kimberly Jones is a wonderful follow-up to the impromptu video of her that went viral.

This is part personal story, almost memoirish, and part prescriptive about what we can do to improve society. The two go hand in hand because statistics and theory often leaves the personal trauma on the outside while pure memoir, while tremendously important, can be viewed by some as no more than one isolated story.

Like others here I read a review copy. Unlike some who dress up their actual feelings in empty objective sounding rhetoric, I will mention that there were several blank pages in the back where the notes, the places where she will cite sources, had not yet been included. That is not unusual in preview copies. To pretend not to notice that space, then to falsely lament the "missing" sources is disingenuous at best and intentionally misleading at worst (at also most likely).

Even if those notes are something less than perfect this is not an academic book. If the only thing a reader takes away is that a popular book did not include every single possible source for what are largely her ideas with credit given for where some of those ideas originated, then it says far more about that reader than about the book. But such is the nature of discourse now.

This is a personal book that grounds her suggestions in the lived experience of herself and many others. You know, the people who have largely been written out of both history and its footnotes. As such the book is accessible to anyone who wants to learn from it and use it to make society better. The others? Well, those red ballcaps have been shown to prevent brains from working properly.

I don't automatically agree with every nuance of her suggestions for making things better. But she offers many great starting points for honest debate and, one hopes, progress on making improvements and ultimately reaching the goals many of us seek. Few plans are perfect when first put forth so I don't think even Jones expects every idea of hers to be perfect in these early stages. But as a starting point for figuring out how to do things and what might work, this is a very useful beginning. It is up to the rest of us to do our part. Engage with the ideas, not the pseudo-concern about enough sources being cited.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Goodreads. ( )

Part history, part commentary, and part guidebook, this nonfiction piece from activist and YA fiction author Kimberly Jones is expected to be published Tuesday (1/18). Read my full review here.

#NetGalley #MacmillanAudio #HenryHoltAndCompany #HowWeCanWin ( )

How we can win is a book that come at the right time and relays such an important message describing the injustices among the Black American population. This book is written in three parts: background of Black lives in America, a description and plans for a new reconstruction, and ends with strategies and helpful tools for life. A very conversational book that is an important read. Highly recommend! ( )