Audacity Book Club: March Read

By Nic Daniels

TW: sexual assault, violence, and racism

Welcome back, audacious readers!

Spring is just around the corner and it’s time to give flowers to trailblazers. Last month, we enjoyed Black and brown love in the lovely rom-com Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert. This month, we’re celebrating one of the women who fought to be heard with The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers.

For those of you who need a quick refresher, Phillis Wheatley was a young child growing up in Gambia in the late 1700’s before being enslaved and taken to Boston. There, she learned to read and write in English and decided to become a poet. She would later become the first African American author to be published. Jeffers honors Wheatley’s life by providing an imagined autobiography.

This poetry volume chronicles Wheatley’s life from her childhood to the final days before her untimely death at the age of 31. This book also gives us a rare glimpse of American history through the eyes of a marginalized woman, ironically, at the height of it’s own fight for freedom. Frankly, it’s quite fitting; whom else could reveal the truths about America if not the ones who are forced to live with all its flaws?

Raw, heartbreaking, but ultimately revolutionary, The Age of Phillis is a tale about finding your voice in the darkest of times and how, no matter how hard people try to hide them, some stories are meant to be told. This book is available wherever books are sold as well as your local library. I hope you enjoy, and I will see you at the end of the month for the full review.

Until then, don’t forget to read audaciously!