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Whew! I am done!

I feel like it took me forever to finish reading this book, and folks, this is not a good sign.

I do feel conflicted. I feel like I should give this a 2.5 because there were so many parts in this book that were dull and uninteresting and if I wouldn't have skimmed through those pages I would've never finished reading this book. But then this is the writing of world famous and much admired Maya Angelou, so I feel compelled to round the rating up to a 3.

While Ms. Angelou's first two memoirs were very engrossing to me and consumed my attention from the first page to the last, this particular one I personally couldn't connect to. It could be, perhaps, that it was just me, so I am not necessarily berating this book, just admitting that it didn't work for me personally.

In this memoir Maya begins her story by describing her experiences as a single young African American mother. Life is certainly difficult for her and she fortunately finds a good-paying and pleasant job working at a record store where she meets a handsome Greek man that asks her to marry him after a few months. It is a great shock to Maya's mother that her daughter accepts the marriage proposal and marries this white man. Domestic bliss doesn't last as long as Maya hopes for and soon the couple is divorced, leaving Clyde (Maya's precious son) devastated that he has lost the only father he has ever known.

The next part in the book I found to be pretty enthralling; this is where Maya describes her experiences dancing in a San Fransisco strip club (where she is the first black dancer) hustling men for overpriced drinks and making the rest of the entertainers mad jealous. That job doesn't last long which is advantageous to Maya because she meets a group of singers that take a liking to her and soon she finds herself part of a singing traveling troupe called Porgy and Bess. The group travels to exotic places from France to Italy to Yugoslavia to Egypt and so on. Now, most of the book is about Ms. Angelou's experiences in dancing and singing and traveling the world, and while it sounds like this should be the most exciting part of the book, it just didn't work for me. I wasn't interested no matter how hard I tried. And that bothered me because Maya's singing adventures are the core of this book. I didn't find any of it interesting: all of the singer' names blended together and became indestinguishable and all of the countries sounded similiar to me.

I think another reader might very much enjoy this book but like I have already mentioned, it just wasn't for me. Overall: 3 out of 5 stars.