I'm not sure about the message of this book . . . maybe that no one is all good or all bad? (Spoilers ahead: beware.) Or that even a really nice person can be corrupted by power and money? Or that our view of what's "good" is warped? No matter how you slice it, it was pretty dang depressing. Not my fave.
It seems reasonable when you think about it, but at this point it seems hilarious that we could have lived in a state called "Navassa" (which is an island, in fact), "Adelsverein" or "Transylvania" (I'm not kidding). I could go on, but I'm not one to spoil. This is a fun book that will educate you as you chuckle along.
While I felt the author's first book, So You Want to Talk About Race, was insightful, I think she was just revving up for this new one. The topic is clearly delineated on the cover, so I needn't say more about that. In Mediocre, a scathing history lesson we all should be required to read, Oluo manages to deliver data we somehow missed (hmmm . . . I wonder how?) in school, shakes her proverbial finger at us for not knowing these things, and helps us know how to do better, all with a dose of humor. I felt like I was sitting down on a coffee break with somebody (a really smart and informed somebody) who could regale me with their knowledge and package it all up in an entertaining way. Make no mistake, this isn't a parody or a humor book. You'll be a tad ashamed that she had to tell you some of these things. But her delivery is such that it's easy to read at a gobble-it-up pace, and then you want to just be her neighbor to keep it going. Loved it, 100%, but was embarrassed, too. We should all be.
