Recently, I read Born A Crime, by Trevor Noah. I appreciated how it made me as a reader so invested in the book. This storytelling was really great, and listening to the audio of Trevor himself reading the book made it better because of the fact that he experienced it and wrote a book about it. It makes you feel better and inspires to do what you want because nothing is impossible once you put your mind into it.
The protagonist is Trevor Noah. His story is set in South Africa, specifically Soweto, an urban area just outside Johannesburg, The significant Soweto setting is that trevor grew up as a light skin, and that was illegal there so he and his mom were always on the run away from cops. The significance of the setting shifting from Soweto to Johannesburg is that where he was first born he was different than everyone else and was bullied and treated differently than others, but after he moved to Johannesburg there was more people like him and other races, so people accepted each other, after moving he was allowed to move around more freely because there was many kids like him.
Trevor Noah faces certain forces and pressures. Trevor’s step father shot his mom and she was taking to the hospital which is really hard for him. He meets these forces and pressures by deciding to either pay the hospital to try and treat his mom which is a low chance and he still loses his money and mom or a miracle happens and his mom lives. You can see this late in the book on page <355>.
The tension rises when he calls his step father and his step father says if he find him he would shoot him as well. This might leave a reader feeling worried. When Trevor calls his step father angry and ready to get revange his step father tells him that yes he did shoot his mom and if he find Trevor he will do the same thing to him, that made Trevor forget about his anger and rather than a reader might think that Trevor got more mad he actually was terrified.
The book climaxes when Trevor’s brother calls him and with a calm and steady voice he asks him how he is doing, and after that he again, calmly tells him that his mom been shot. “I’m sort of sleeping. Why?” “Mom’s been shot.”
The falling action ultimately resolves the conflict. At the end his mom luckily survived and they were talking and laughing at the end which was great to hear because as a reader I thought she would die. It’s a person v. society type of conflict that’s driving this story. I say person v, society because he grew up different than everyone else and was always living at different places, he was poor and a “crime” because he was a light skin, which made things much harder for him. I would like to end this with appreciating how the story telling and way of expressing emotions was really great, I definitely recommend this book because it tells you more about his culture and how it was for him growing up.
