Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

I'm a college English teacher, and I order these for my students through the college bookstore, but they are as slow as molasses in getting them in. So I always order extras from Amazon to have on hand. This collection of stories is fabulous; they demonstrate that yes there are racial issues that everyone should be aware of (my group of students is not particularly diverse, so this is especially eye opening for them), but most of all, the stories are about kids (and young adults): their loves, their laughs, their trials and tribulations. When people of any age read these stories, we realize that we really do have more in common than differences. And the stories are so well written that they are just enjoyable to read as entertainment. If you like the short story genre, you'll probably like the collection in Black Enough.

This collection of vignettes is a lovely read, glimpses of self-discovery in a number of ways. Each story is a gem, filled with gifts of language like these: "Tessa was a person who could wreak havoc with a sentence. Sixteen years doesn’t seem like long, but how many lives could a person with that kind of power have ruined in her time?" "The man cried so badly, his tears glittered like constellations of stardust." "All night, his fingers had flown over his keyboard, writing line after line of code so fast, it felt like he was playing music." "It was the nerdiest, most backhanded compliment Mak had ever gotten, Kamari suggesting that Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, beauty, and pleasure, was Mak’s mother."I'd typically choose one quote as representative of the book, but with so many voices, just one feels like neglecting the others. Each character discovering and learning to embrace their true selves is beautiful, varying from Black enough to sexual identity, breaking free of parental rule, letting intelligence and horniness shine, and so much more.It's a book of teens learning their place in this world, and making it their own with growing confidence and strength. Beautiful, I recommend for anyone who has ever felt not enough.

The stories here are all so wonderful. It’s hard to chose a favorite story but one thing for sure is that they all look at being black differently. So stories will resonate more than others with you as a black person. The two stories dealing with sister relationships I found relatable!

As a new reader, I decided to start with something light and gradually expand my reading horizons. I must say, this book is fantastic and has a plethora of engaging short stories that captured my attention, which can be hard to do at times. My personal favorite was the story about the girl going to camp. Although there were some alternative lifestyle stories that caught me off guard, they weren't too heavy and still held up well. If you're a new reader looking for a great book to dip your toes into before diving into heavier material, I highly recommend picking this one up.

It's hard to find YA books by Black authors. And when I find them, they are often about the very painful issues my son battles on a daily basis. But sometimes, we want a break from harsh realities AND a Black MC. Every once in a while, I find a book like Black Enough that walks this great, beautiful line, and serves up meaningful, fun, encouraging short stories featuring sharp, strong, creative, admirable Black kids. My son and I love to read this together. And I think he'll enjoy reading it again when he's in his teens.

Phenomenal book. Phenomenal stories of Black children experiencing Blackness in different ways. Fantastic authors. Lovely characters.This collection of stories covers a wide range of adventures. Enjoyable for any and all teen and adult readers as the stories range from exploring queerness, being biracial, and immigrating from other countries, to dealing with divorce and half-siblings and more.If you’re a white reader, like I am, this will build empathy and knock down pre-conceived notions of what it means to be Black in America. If you’re a Black/African-American reader, I imagine that you will feel seen and feel lots of comradery with the characters.Definitely put this on your list of must-reads.

As much as I enjoyed these stories, I wanted them to continue. This was a book that celebrates diversity of men & women, both in terms of race, religion, family values. The voices come across the page, grabbing the reader from the first word. Sometimes I forgot that this was a book of stories about young African Americans. These stories could have been about black, or white orAsian kids...amazing stories. I’ll now go and read each authors creations..

I chose this book for my book club. I loved the stories in this book. Very informative, the audio was nice to listen to. There’s a lot of stories that I bookmarked. If you search “Page Turners Book Club” you will see in depth review of this book.

The stories are pretty much the best. I have probably read this thing about three or four times already that is how much I love the book if you guys wanna low more about your roots it’s called black enough so obviously is that a targeted audience I would recommend for all people of all ages race, etc to read the book and buy especially because it was not that expensive as well so yeah.

Confesso que esperava algo diferente desta história e essa expectativa, sem dúvida, acabou por influenciar a minha opinião.“Black Enough” é uma colecção de contos escritos por autores pretos que visa mostrar situações comuns de ser jovem e pertencente a uma minoria nos EUA. No entanto, nem sempre esse facto é o que está em evidência nestes textos, afinal ser adolescente por si só pode ser um verdadeiro drama que é transversal a todos os seres humanos.

Sammlung von schönen Geschichten. sehr gutes Vorwort

This is an excellent anthology of teenage life in current day USA. I loved the range and depth of these stories dealing not only with race but love, family, religion, grief, school and social pressures with styles ranging from humour to heartbreak and even managing to include a couple of LGBTQ+ tales.They were all wonderfully different, although I was amused to note that most of the stories about boys dealt with romance - one exception being Jason Reynolds' "The Ingredients", which was about food, that other teenage boy obsession. The girl-led stories were more varied with school pressure, friendship troubles, grief, family problems and religion also playing a part.My favourites were probably "Black. Nerd. Problems." by Lamar Giles, because it made me laugh the most, and "Stop Playing" by Liara Tamani, which managed to be fun and thoughtful and kind of exasperating all at once. But there are so many good stories here that it would be easy to pick a handful more that I liked almost as much.In all this is a great collection. There wasn't a single story I didn't enjoy, which is rare for me with an anthology, and I'll be eagerly shoving it into the hands of all the teen readers in my life.

given the current socio-political climate and the discussions that are taking place around systemic racism, this book is a must read.This was incredibly difficult and moving to read, but a very important read at that.This would be a good text to use with school students as a means to spark conversation and give an insight into the history and current issues eith racism in the U.S.