I recently found some notes as I decluttered my notepads. I accessed this book here on NetGalley before it was published. Thanks to my notes, I can still come back to review this book despite reading it some time ago.

Snippets of my notes
“Black Girl: No Magic [from what I gather so far] is about blackness, womanhood, class, and an individual experience that intersects these margins and takes a light-hearted approach to tough topics.”
“Chapter 8 felt like useless dribble. I am not sure how this sensibly ties into the book.”

I remember being unimpressed by this book towards the last few chapters. It started well enough, but I got lost often trying to figure out what the author was trying to say. There were parts where I didn’t see it all fit cohesively, and it was not what I was looking for when I saw the title. There were some decent parts, like parts about beauty standards, desirability, and the societal value of those ideas. I enjoyed that chapter the most. Since it’s been a few years since I read this, and my fierce dislike for this book has dimmed immensely. Writing a book isn’t easy, so I can understand and make peace with that.

+ Should anyone care? - Yes. Not every work of a black author should be a masterpiece or the highest point of excellence. This book is decent enough to resonate with certain people and verbalise ideas that may not have been accessible.

+ What makes this book different from the others? Unfortunately, this book isn’t significantly different from others. It comes off as a memoir with some compelling facts and information, but the book didn’t embody the substance I was looking for when I first saw it.

A book with hugely important topics about what life is like to grow up as a young black woman in the UK. I found some essays hard to read and had to skip them, but others were wonderful and I really enjoyed them.

I'm a bit torn about this essay collection. Some of the essays are poignant but some are misses.
I would like to praise Kimberly McIntosh for writing such raw and a very millennial collection.
I still enjoyed it, would recommend to friends who love essays.

A thoughtful and witty selection of essays that balanced personal elements from Kimberly McIntosh's own life with discussions about race and class. I didn't mind the non-linear essay style and I'm excited to pick up this author's future work.

This was a great debut within a book that goes through the author’s life experiences. I really enjoyed it.

3.8

It is interesting to read about Kimberly's life and her perspective.
I did find the structure of the book a bit hard to follow, as the narration doesnt seem linear. however the topic is one I am trying to read more about.

One of the many books that made meeting my reading goal this year incredibly difficult. Never have I found a more fitting title - Black Girl, no magic for real.

A collection of “essays” is a bit of a stretch for some of the chapters in this book. Such a shame as it started off so strong, but towards the middle of the book in the exploration of drugs and sex chapters, I found that she lost her structure, style of writing, and general point.

A hard miss from me.

Kimberly McIntosh is an honest, insightful, and brilliant writer and I learned a lot from this book. As a retired white woman, I’m far removed from her universe as this is far removed from my experience, and there was a lot of learning for me in this book. I enjoyed it very much. It felt like sitting beside someone randomly on the train and chatting to them and finding they are full of stories, of fun, and of information about life today for a young black woman.

I naively thought that if I personally believe I have no issues with racism then all is well. But reading this book really got me thinking. Got me thinking about the times I’ve been offended by someone’s comment but said nothing because I didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ but the boat needs rocking.

Ms McIntosh is funny and some of her stories and experiences are quite shocking and overall I felt glad not to be ‘growing up’ during this time of social media and phone cameras.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to interact with this author in these pages and I’ll be looking out for further work from her.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley

A Review: Black Girl, No Magic - Kimberly Mckintosh

The folks at @netgalley were kind enough to send me an e-arc of this wonderful and thought provoking memoir.

This series of essays documents notable moments through out Kimberly’s life. From relationships, to sex, desire, friendships, drugs, family and the role race played in it all.

Thank you Kimberly and NetGalley, for this important and insightful read

5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Enlightening, well researched, and unapologetically honest essay collection that challenges the stereotypes of what it is to be a Black British woman.

An honest and messy book which serves to record an individual life and general learning points.

I have read quite a few essay collections and musings on race and society by young Black women now, but there's always something different, and I think here it was the class aspect. So her accent and the people she knows have afforded her privileges, she shares some amusing glossaries of posh people stuff, and she spent quite a while thinking that all Black people had to do was try harder and show excellence to be accepted and succeed. But things are more nuanced than that in the book, as she critiques institutional racism, the "illusion of inclusion" in which organisations practise colourism in order to make you think they're for everyone while using only light-skinned women in their adverts.

McIntosh makes the point that as a younger woman, she has made all her discoveries and realisations online,, recorded in articles and think pieces, pieces which now won't go away. There's quite a lot about how her education taught her how to avoid STIs but not how to buy and take drugs safely and a chapter that's half-satire and half-how-to on drug-taking, which does explain how to stay safe but is a slightly odd intrusion: but it's her book of essays and she can include what she wants.

Lively, messy and open (but well-referenced), a good insight into younger Black female lives today, with the interest of a middle-class education in mainly White spaces.

Review will come out 29 June

I enjoyed this memoir/essay collection on the author's experiences as a young Black woman. I found the chapters on her own life more compelling than the more research-heavy interludes (though the topics she covers are important and very relevant to her discussion of what it means to be Black in the UK today). I didn't always find the segues between sections to be very cohesive but it's an enjoyable and informative read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book is great and I would 100% recommend it. I haven't finished it but it's mostly because as a black girl, it hits a bit too close to home. But I WILL finish it because its great!

An engaging essay collection that balances personal experiences and anecdotes with research and investigation. It draws out the ways that we take the parameters of our lives for granted, revealing how influential our backgrounds and identities actually are.

McIntosh is direct in her analysis of the way that racial differences and racism play out in British culture and society, creating space for learning, solution finding and moving towards a more just society rather than just critiquing and judging the issues that exist. She discusses difference of experience in a way that allows for individuality within commonality and resists being defined by stereotypes or living a life dictated by trying to avoid stereotypes. Alongside race, her exploration of class feels essential, and was the thread that I could personally relate to most. I loved her prioritisation of friendship over romance (so rare!), and her focus on having uncomfortable conversations and calling out racism.

Her accounts of relationships, parties, travelling, university and workplaces are unafraid to be honest and have a lighthearted humour, but are also full of sensitivity and reflection. More than anything, they are driven by careful attention and what seems like a genuine desire to make the world a better and more equitable place.

Kimberly McIntosh weaves together her personal experience and comprehensive research to create a collection of essays which outlines the complicated, multi-faceted reality of being a Black millennial woman in the UK.

'Middle-class safari' is an acerbic eviceration of a society that prizes wealth, social and cultural capital - and whiteness - above all else. Race and class are often seen as synonymous in the UK, but McIntosh makes pains to warn about conflating the two, of expecting all Black people to have overcome struggle in order to achieve success and patronising them accordingly. McIntosh acknowledges how her own privileges - she attended private school from the age of seven and has cultivated the coveted RP accent - have smoothed her passage and opened doors for her. However, she remembers having disdain for others from similar backgrounds who seemingly weren't trying hard enough to improve their situation. 'I had left it behind, with what I believed back then to be perseverance and grit. It was easier to believe in meritocracy, that my ability plus effort brought my successes.' She bought into the myth of respectability politics because it made her feel better to attribute her success to hard work rather than acknowledging the role luck played in giving her opportunities that were not available to most of her peers through no fault of her own. The essay includes a scathing deconstruction of the meritocracy myth, which feels particularly relevant in the current political climate in the UK.

Throughout the essays, McIntosh demonstrates a frank, self-aware approach to describing how she has navigated her life which is refreshing and illuminating. The book is also peppered with light-hearted asides such as the glossary of posh terms, excerpts from her teenage gap year diary, and a nostalgically cringey selection of Facebook updates from the mid-00s.

'The right kind of family' raises thought-provoking questions about adoption, and the importance of adhering to cultural norms such as getting married and then having children in order to be accepted by Middle England. A selection of essays on attractiveness, sex and dating shine a spotlight on the social constructs of beauty - 'Is she hot or is she just blonde?' It is a sad truth that, for far too many girls and young women's, their sense of self-worth is inextricably linked with whether or not they think boys find them attractive, and McIntosh's stories of her early experiences of sex will feel familiar to many women of all races - 'Anything sexual seesawed between shame and empowerment, rarely reaching equilibrium.' However, McIntosh highlights the specific additional difficulties Black women face in a society which glorifies Western beauty standards and rejects any deviation. This is amplified by the fact that Black men are statistically the most likely of any group to date outside their race; McIntosh points to how shows such as Love Island hold a mirror to the dispiriting experience of dating as a Black woman, particularly one with darker skin, in the UK.

'Twenty-four-hour party people' is an honest, realistic look at drug-taking and drug laws in the UK, with McIntosh drawing unashamedly on her own experience of both illegal drugs and alcohol to argue about the need for a re-evaluation of a system which is
'based on arbitrary categories and moral panics.' She comments on how the current approach to criminalising drugs and punishing offenders is disproportionately affecting the Black community, but the government is reluctant to acknowledge this because it would mean trying to address the social factors which have created this situation.

''But you have Beyoncé?' - on race and friendship' is a thoughtfully exploration on how friendships with both Black and non-Black friends can shape a young Black person's racial identity, the importance of boundaries, and of not being afraid to cast aside a friendship which is 'built on the suppression of [one's] true feelings and fundamental principles.' This feels particularly relevant in the aftermath of a referendum which exposed previously hiddden deep fault lines across the country in 2016, and the repercussions of the Black Lives Matter movement which gained momentum in 2020.

Finally, 'Atheism? Faith in the Black community' analyses data from various sources to unpack why religion plays a more important role in the lives of Black Britons than their white counterparts, and the implications of renouncing those beliefs.

Full of sharply observed commentary on British society, the essays take a deep dive into class, family, sex, beauty, friendships, drugs and faith as experienced through the prism of being Black, female and coming of age during the 00s. While each essay focuses specifically on how McIntosh and other Black girls and women experience the world, there is much that is universal about what she describes, and many of her stories and observations will resonate with women of all races.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

black girl, no magic is a thoughful collection of personal essays.

Each essay takes a loose theme that McIntosh unravels through reference points and personal experiences, always underlined by race. Her explorations feel effortless and organic, and with some wonderfully fluid prose, reading this book often feels like you're having a conversation with an old friend. Her storytelling is honest, full of learning and reflection and a willingness to laugh at her younger self, and I found her voice immediately likeable.

Easy to read, challenging and thought-provoking all at the same time, black girl, no magic is an accomplished collection of essays. Highly recommended.

It is very hard to give a more accurate review of the book due to all the problems with the uploaded file. I'd be happy to re-review with a better file. I have awarded stars for the book cover and description as they both appeal to me. I would be more than happy to re-read and review if a download becomes available. If you would like me to re-review please feel free to contact me at thesecretbookreview@gmail.com or via social media The_secret_bookreview (Instagram) or Secret_bookblog (Twitter). Thank you.

Initisl thoughts: Through a collection of personal essays, Kimberly McIntosh catalogues the moments in life that have mattered to her: from friendship, dating, travelling and the role played by race throughout.
McIntosh leads the reader through her life in a challenging and thought-provoking memoir. As a white woman, I've become increasingly aware in recent years, of the privileged position that I have simply as an accident of birth and these essays, bring this realisation into sharp relief. There is a lesson to be learned here, an opportunity for eyes to be opened and to understand that as women, we need to reach out and use any privilege to help each out.