You Can't Touch My Hair (YCTMH) comes through in a series of essays by Phoebe Robinson, one of two women who make up the podcast duo of Two Dope Queens. Phoebe has been a writer, standup comedian, and actress and is still making her way in the entertainment business. I gather from the book that the book deal came after the popular success of a blog, Blaria (Black Daria), but I've never read the blog before.
Robinson is a few years younger than me, so her pop culture references were on the periphery of my own experience, but still close enough that I understood them. Glad I didn't waste time watching The Kingsmen even though I love Colin Firth. Listening to the book was a bit like spending an extended period of time with a Millennial. As a gen-x type I got a little tired of the constant voice modulations prevalent in the young, but that's probably spot on generation-wise.
I digress. I've spent time this past year consciously trying to make an effort to listen to more voices that aren't like mine, specifically cis, het, college educated, white woman. My echo chamber is deep and wide after almost ten years of college and post-graduate education. So listening to Robinson's book was not only entertaining because of the jokes, but also interesting because of the different perspective Robinson brings as a black woman.
In the end, I felt the book ran a little long. I feel like there was quite a bit of material added for the audiobook that may not have appeared in print, and in the end it felt a little repetitive, but YCTMH still made me laugh. I actually spit coffee out in my car when she referred to Craig's List as Lucifer's Taint.
That's back to back Robinson books for me (Michelle Robinson aka Michelle Obama and Phoebe Robinson). What should I read next?
3/5 Stars.
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