Review: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was fantastic! This is one of the most fantastic books I’ve ever read. I think Trevor Noah is hilarious. His brand of comedy is funny to me, and I wish I had been able to get a hold of the audio version of this because the delivery of his one liners in this are so funny and perfectly placed. I can only imagine how funny it is to hear him narrate the story of his life. He covers some very heavy issues, but he diffuses each situation with comedy so you can pause, catch your breath, and move on. This was a hard read, but it is also important.  He has some great insights to race and how children see the world.  If only some of those things were actually true the world might be a better place.

This is one of those books, where you think “hey that guy is on TV, he has it all”, and then you read about the hardships and terrors he’s faced in his life. Trevor Noah did not have it all, in fact he had very little, and it’s a testament to his survival skills that he made it through his childhood in South Africa during apartheid. You read about some of the things he and this mother survived and it is amazing they both lived through it all. His very birth was a crime and the deck was stacked against him and his family for much of his life. Reading this was hard, but he laces his life story with his brand of comedy such that he takes something awful and he puts a joke in lighten tough situations. I got quite the education on the settling of South Africa, apartheid, and how gender and race are seen in another country.

This is a story about a defiant little boy who tested his mother’s patience as often as possible, a mother who loved him and did her best, a country that had very interesting laws about people of color, and survival. I highly recommend this book.


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