Rarely do I feel like giving out five star reviews to a book. Rarer still is me picking up a non-fiction book for purposes other than academic. I had the pleasure of hearing Ta-Nehisi Coates speak on race relations in the USA on an episode of the Daily Show. His insight and passion for the subject took me by surprise. Between the World and Me took me by surprise as well. 
 Between the World and Me is a letter written from father to son in many ways instead of a conversation that I've heard most black people need to have with their children at a young age. Respect authority, sure, but make sure that you fear it. It is part memoir, part explanation and part celebration and admonition of all that it means to be black in America. 
 Race in America was not an issue that affected my directly, having grown up in Dubai and being Indian. Race as a construct though has definitely affected me. It is only on close introspection that you realise each and everyone of us has to go through some or the other form of racism, whether we realise it or not. Not all of us, however, have our lives threatened because of it. This is precisely what black people have to deal with in the USA. 
 Between the World and Me is a powerful meditation on race relations and what it means to be black in America. It is an examination of the different kinds of love and loss. It is an urge for you to love yourself, regardless of how you look. It is a mirror being cast upon us to realise that shame on how we look is a feeling passed on to us by former rulers of the world. It is a book that is important, and worthy of being read at least once.