Name: You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey
ISBN: 9781538719367

Lacey Lamar

Amber Ruffin

A writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and her sister share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism.

Crazy Stories about Racism

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey

Sarah Schumacher

Simultaneously funny, depressing, and at times, heartbreaking. The entire book is intentionally lighthearted and I enjoyed the back and forth style of writing between the sisters. It should be required reading for white people, although we all know the people who need it most would never…

Side note: I would love a book about their mom, and all others like her, that’s nothing but stories about the most epic takedowns of people who had it coming.

Side side note: I would love to live in a world where books, stories, and takedowns like this weren’t necessary. Do better people.

Ozge Kara

This was an amazing and horrifying book. I listened to it as an audiobook and it was really good. Even though at times I had to pause to give myself a break from hearing all this crazy stories! You know what, I was surprised but also not surprised. I don’t know. I am a million percent sure that everything in this book happens all the time but also HOW? Like how? Like. How can people say and do crazy racist shit and think it is OK?

Crystal L

I do not want to say that a book about racism is GREAT but... maybe I'll just say that it's essential reading (really a "what not to do") for white people in the United States (and probably elsewhere). Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, Lacey has a lot of stories about racism. Subtle, overt, humourous, hurtful, scary, this book covers it all with stories about Lacey's actual life interspersed with a few stories or comments from Amber. I had to stop a few times because some of the stories are pretty intense, but that just goes to show that I have the privilege to read this, step away, and not live it every day. I cannot say enough good things about this, and hope to buy a few copies for family and friends. 

5/5 Stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Nast

The stories range from horrible to double facepalm, but I’m glad to be able to get an insight to their experience and I hope to be able to avoid inflicting racist behaviors on POC. 

The narration is brilliant and Amber’s lead as voice actor is great fun, plus Lacey’s comments and dialogues makes it a very unique and precious audiobook.

Jeannette Ordas

This is a slight book with large print and photos but it really is what the title says: crazy stories about racism. Amber and her sister Lacey's personal stories are disturbing and horrific. For a white person living in a liberal bubble it's shocking, but it's an engaging read (with lots of humour, of course!) about what racist shit gets flung at BIPOCs on the regular in North America.

ella mayo

finally finished! i’ve always loved amber ruffin and this book just made me love her and appreciate all of her work even more. poignant and educational and heartbreaking and hilarious page after page. good book. very good book.

Archita Birla

KADY BURNS

Thank you to NetGalley, Grand Central Publishing and the author for the ARC

I laughed, I cried, and overall felt ashamed to be a white woman in middle America not far from Omaha. I feel like I know so many of these people Lacey has encountered. I enjoyed this book so much and would recommend it to anyone.

Rose Stanley

Fifth book of Tis the Damn Readathon

Album: Folklore
Prompt: Exile (Read a book written by two authors)

OK, so for people like myself (white and British, so doubly sheltered from the realities of these women's experiences) I recommend that, as a minimum, you read this, sleep on it, and then immediately reread it.

The first time I read this, because I'm familiar with Amber's comedy work, I thought this book would be a lot funnier and a lot less depressing (I don't know why I thought this when it's literally a book about racism, but there we are). The second time I read this, because I knew what was coming, I could process the stories better. 

Enjoyed the interactions between Amber and Lacey (close sibling relationships for the win), and their mother is an absolute legend honestly, but the stories of what they (especially Lacey) have to put up with every day is...it's a lot. They break you in gently chapter by chapter but it's A LOT.

Mission statement of this book (for white readers): 
'hopefully the white reader is gonna read this, feel sad, think a little about it, feel like an ally, come to a greater understanding of the DEPTH of this type of sh*t, and maybe walk away with a different point of view of what it's like to be a Black American in the twenty-first century'.

Mission accomplished, ladies.

Alli King

Thank you NetGalley for this eARC! 

‘You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey’ pretty much epitomizes the saying ‘you have to laugh to keep from crying.’ The book is a series of stories told by two sisters, and focuses on the experience being Black in the city of Omaha. The stories are absolutely terrible- but somehow Amber and Lacey make them hilarious. There are racist experiences from every part of their life (and some others in their family), and they’re right- it’s hard to believe. I mean, it’s not, but it should be. 

Their sisters dynamic is well translated to text, and you feel at times that you’re in the middle of a conversation with the two of them. My only problem with the book comes from just that- at times it’s so conversational as to become confusing. I had to go back and reread a couple of times to remember what the original train of thought was. 

Overall, though, I recommend this book. Unfortunately, I feel like the people who most need it won’t pick it up— but maybe enough people in their lives will, and they’ll finally acknowledge that racism didn’t disappear with the election of Obama.

LaToia Bates

This book is so good. It is so damn hilarious, unsettlingly relatable, and furious all at once. We all have stories like these. And even the stories that are way out there are relatable to situations I have been put in. I would have given it a full 5 stars but there was just a distracting about of ableist language used.

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey Crazy Stories about Racism

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