Books That Shaped Me: College/Post Grad Edition

 

Hello my lovely readers!

Here is the third and final installment of the Books that Shaped Me series. 

These four books truly and whole-heartedly shaped me. As a child, I was surrounded by books that represented me as a Black girl, but that was mostly by force (thanks, Mom!) or coincidence, honestly. Then teenage Naomi was all about the drama and the books I read reflected it.

As a young Black woman in her early to mid-20s, navigating my profession as a journalist, love and travel, I began to seek out books that represented me. At first, it was unintentional (again, thanks Mom! You'll see why in a bit) and then it became more and more intentional.  I promise this will make sense as we move forward.

Let's get into the post-grad edition of Naomi!

Taming it Down

My mother gifted me this book for Christmas in 2013. The novel was originally written in 1998 and follows Hope, a young Black reporter, at a Philadelphia newspaper and the shenanigans she has to endure.

I read this book as I began my journalism career at a small newspaper in Texas. I remember annotating nearly every line in the book because what Hope was experiencing, I was experiencing. I felt incredibly validated to see myself as a young professional Black woman navigating the journalism industry and dealing with the annoying sources and interesting colleagues and editors. 

This book showed me that I wasn't alone in my experiences. For that, I'm forever grateful.
 

The Ice Cream Girls

I remember exactly where I was when I saw this book. I was at an ferry port in England, getting ready to head to Ireland in 2010 for a study abroad program with my journalism school. The port had a bookstore, so I looked around and spotted this book. Ooh, a novel with a Black arm on it and it's written by a Black woman? Yay!

I wrote down the title but didn't actually purchase the book until 2013! Even after buying it I didn't read it until I was on a cruise to the Bahamas in 2015! What took me so long to read it? I don't know, but it made the experience of the book all the more greater.

Reading a well-written thriller novel that had a middle class Black woman as the main character  blew my mind. I'd always come across books with Black women who were either stereotypically ghetto or super high-class. It was a joy to read someone who could've been my mother or myself. 

Kinky Gazpacho

As a proud Midwestern Black girl, I felt so seen in this memoir. I know, I know, I've been saying that a lot, but that's the theme with these books and why they shaped me!

I was about two years fresh from my trip to Spain and to read about a Black Midwestern woman who'd been the outcast from the "cool" Black people, growing up in a predominantly white area and then traveling and moving to Spain was beautiful. Twinning! She was in all the cities I'd traveled to (hello Andalusia!) and I felt so connected to her. There were no "tragic" themes throughout this memoir, just a regular, normal Black girl with a regular, normal childhood, just like me.

Go Girl!

I was on an involuntary travel break when I first read this book. I'd just started my new job and their vacation policy forced you to wait a full year before you could even use your measly two weeks of vacation. Ghetto.

While on my travel hiatus, I picked up this book. BAD DECISION. It only fueled my desire to travel the world even more. Black women shared their stories from places like Peru, Ghana, Bali, Australia...places that I hadn't even thought of visiting (I was still baby travel Naomi...I'd only been to Mexico and a few countries in Europe). This book forced my traveling to become more global and I ended up visiting nearly all of the places in this book.

There you have it! Thought I'd share the books that shaped me in every stage of my life. I'm not sure what books will shape me as I enter into this next stage as a married woman and soon to be mommy, but I'm excited to see what they are!