I found Black Boy to be a highly frustrating book at times; Richard Wright viscerally recounts what it is like to grow up as a perennial outsider, merely for wanting agency and respect in a world that denied both to him at every turn.

My knowledge of American history has many gaps, so the additional context offered by this book around the North/South divide was very insightful.

Despite it being very slow-paced and dense, I found myself getting much more into the book as it progressed, particularly from his late teens onwards. My main complaint would be that a lot of time was spent on his childhood, and while those formative experiences were very important and defining for him, I found it excruciating read about him getting accused of acting a certain way and beaten, and then repeat by several adults.