I blazed through this book in an evening. I don't know if I've really digested it yet. The first story, from which the book's title comes, is one of the more experimental stories. It starts with a young man heading to ComiCon in LA and ends with two chalk outlines on the sidewalk. It doesn't so much break the fourth wall as peek over it, wink, and then take a sledgehammer to it. It happened so fast that my feelings couldn't quite catch up with it.

The author says that "If you are a black nerd, or a blerd — or love or care about black nerds — then this book is for you. And even if you don’t, then you probably need to read this book so you can develop some empathy for those characters." I loved her characters and her wicked sense of humor.

There's a story that's entirely made up of letters between two mothers sent in their children's backpacks which starts with politely barbed nastiness and degenerates into something far more street. The author then takes one of the daughters from this story and puts her in a couple more stories of her own, one of which takes place in a yoga class as this daughter, Fatima, ruminates upon her struggles with her body image. The author links a couple of stories through characters in this way. In one story a woman slowly reveals herself by talking about her boyfriends until the reader understands that she's got a fetish for men who have been physically damaged. In a later story, her first boyfriend, who ended up with a restraining order against this woman, works on an essay for his graduate anthropology program with another Black classmate. The two of them can't figure out how to write an enthographic paper without having it feel like it plays into stereotypes, because when you're writing a snapshot then each character ends up as a representative of its race, identity group, etc. I think this is the theme that the author really wants to tackle in her book. How can she write about Black people without each Black character being in danger of representing all Black people?

The author chooses characters that feel very much like themselves and in which Blackness, while important, isn't their entire identity. In a darkly amusing piece, a young woman considers different ways of suicide in order to enhance her social media presence. "Cats do better than babies, which do far better than almost any other post". She's not sure whether her auburn weave is the way she wants to be remembered for posterity, although she likes the look right now what if it ages? Cutting hurts more than she thought it would, and she only has enough pills to give herself a stomach ache. She posts depressing songs to give her followers a hint of what's coming, but they just think she's posting a great playlist and only her mother picks up on the hint.

Social media presence factors into several stories. In one of my favorites, a young woman posts ASMR videos (soothing videos with soft repetitive sounds) and uses a whispery voice as her trademark. She is getting lots of hits and making some money, but she doesn't feel seen, just feels like she's being used as a tool. While adept at social media, she can't show her true self there.

Then there's the woman who visits the DMV who's trying to remember her therapy coping skills even though she knows going in that she's going to hate every minute of this. It's funny, but also kind of dark because this woman has some deep seated issues that she's chosen not to share with her therapist.

We're none of us that far from snapping, because we all have our individual private burdens, and that's a major theme of this collection. It sounds pretty dark, and it can be, but it can also be funny, beautiful, and let you see yourself in another person, because that's what life is too.

Great read! Looking forward to reading more by this author! I highly recommend this book and author to all!

I really liked this collection of short stories. I'd be really interested in seeing Thompson-Spires develop some of these into longer fiction, too.

Thompson-Spires’ collection is heavy on the satire. Although, I can see how incredibly talented Thompson-Spires is as a story teller I had a difficult time connecting with her characters. I love how Thompson-Spires dealt with the heavy hitting topics but had trouble fully engaging with the writing. There were a few stories that I loved because of the humor, like the ‘Belle Letters’ but for the most part I was left feeling detached from the text and left wanting more.

Solid story collection, although a few weeks after finishing it I'm struggling to remember any details.

In HEADS OF THE COLORED PEOPLE, Nafissa Thompson-Spires has written a powerful short story collection that entertains as it illuminates. The stories are set against a backdrop of police brutality and micro-aggressions, and feature characters who lack the freedom to speak their minds to colleagues or therapists, friends or family. Their inner lives roil with all that is unsaid until, as it must, it finds a release. By turns funny and tragic, and always thoughtful, the collection is a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand the toll racial injustice exacts.

The stories in this collection explore what it means to be "colored" in a supposedly post-racial society. An excellent primer for anyone struggling with how systematized racism and micro-agression plays out without sacrificing its literary appeal.

Easily one of the best collections of short stories I have ever ever seen. Definitely lives up to the hype. I absolutely LOVED every single story-- there wasn't one I disliked!

This is a collection of stories about black identity and while I found some of them delightful, I didn't connect as well with the others. Many of the characters were hilarious and quirky, which I love, but I wish they had more dimension to them. Nafissa's writing is lovely and was the highlight of this book for me. *ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this short story collection and found myself intrigued with the details and even laughing out loud at a few points. I appreciate that the author used not only black culture and the complexities of black identity in the storylines but also made sure to not present black people as a monolith. The pages are rich with vibrant presentations of the many aspects, struggles, personalities, and interests of the black characters. It's a great collection and I can't believe that it's Nafissa Thompson-Spires' first book. I look forward to reading more from her.

*This review is based on a free digital advance copy provided by the publisher. The opinions expressed are my own.

This book is entertaining and thought provoking. At turns dry, acerbic and oddly sweet. They stories linger in the readers mind, long after reading.

I really liked some of these stories. Some had a biting and humorous edge to them, while I found some others fell a little flat. Several characters showed up in more than one story, which gives this collection a small town feel where you keep running into the same people. There was something so contemporary about many of the stories I found it hard to see depth in the characters or their circumstances.

This story collection featuring characters from all backgrounds grappling with black identity is just what I needed as I get ready to unwind a little bit for the summer. I have been reading collections lately by black women writers from Kathleen Collins to Stephanie Powell Watts and this one of my favorites so far. Don't miss out on this title.

I enjoyed this book more than I expected to, mainly because the stories are a surprising combination of everyday life, tragedy, and humor.  The stories focus on black identity in a powerful way, but this is far from a one-issue book. Thompson-Spires covers body issues, bullying, friendship, parenthood, and therapy, just to name a few.  I related to her biting portrayals of reality television and social media.

Thompson-Spires does a great job of keeping every story interesting and different, yet also loosely connecting each story through a few repeated characters.  I was particularly interested in Fatima, who we meet as a sixth grader through a series of biting letters written between two petty, competitive mothers.  Then we see her as a teenager and as an adult.

These stories feature characters we sympathize with, but a few feature characters who were really disturbing, and that’s got to be challenging for a writer.  We meet Jilly, a narcissist who only thinks about how she’s seen on social media (“Suicide, Watch”); we meet Randolph, who finds inventive ways to torment his office mate (“The Necessary Changes Have Been Made”), and we meet Kim, who stalks disabled men so she can feel needed, yet can’t be bothered even to learn their names (“This Todd”).

Racial identity is ever-present throughout these stories.  Because we go back and forth between humor and tragedy, there’s a sense of never knowing what to expect, and this makes the issues hit home even more powerfully.  For example, the first couple of stories are about a fight that breaks out at a convention between two guys who just happen to rub each other the wrong way.  The story focuses on the little things; who the men are, why they are at the conference, who they’re dating, what they’re wearing.  But there's a tragic side to the story.

In contrast, another story is about a complicated friendship between two girls.  One of my favorites was simply about two college students in an anthropology class trying to write about race (“A Conversation About Bread”).  Many of the stories, in fact, are about the interactions among black people, rather than between black and white.  In these stories, you see just how complicated race can be.  Our identities also come from what we look like, where we're from, how we were raised, how we talk, and how we feel about ourselves.

I was particularly moved by the story about Raina, a teenager who posts videos online, is being harassed by the boys at her school and who’s in an online relationship with a guy who doesn’t show his face ("Whisper to a Scream").

With a lot of short story collections, I enjoy some of the stories but dislike others. Or sometimes the stories all feel so similar it’s hard to stay interested.  In this book, there really was only one story that failed to capture my attention, and that was about a troubled woman standing in line at the DMV ("Not Today, Marjorie").  And even this story was relatable and thoughtful, but the narrator grated on me.

The book is named for an actual long-running series of sketches by James McCune Smith that, as the author explains, “narrate black life from the mundane to the obscure and span the didactic to the macabre.”  I think that’s a perfect description of this book.  I highly recommend this book, for its portrayal of the complexity of race issues in America, but also because it’s darkly funny, clever, and thought-provoking.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and publisher Atria Books.  The book was published April 10, 2018.

I enjoyed how some of these short stories wove together, but overall I found the stories lacking.

For fans of New People by Danzy Senna or Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins, this short story collection runs the gamut from devastatingly sad to subtly funny to uproarious. Sometimes you'll see characters appear in more than one story, but many of the storylines and ideas are quite distinct.

This collection of stories is a unique and sometimes interwoven deliberation on middle-class black life, black bodies and identity, social media, ableism, and mental health. There are so many topics handled with a wry and darkly humorous eye, and Thompson-Spires does a wonderful job of making her characters realistic. Several of the stories made me uncomfortable as they end in an abrupt and sometimes tragic way- but it's the type of discomfort that comes with reading something so creative and well-crafted that you didn't see it coming. I would highly recommend this to any fans of short stories, or even general modern literary fiction.

Heads of the Colored People knocked me clean off my chair in the first few pages. This collection is full of magic, blending delicate language with fierce social critique in its effort to center black identity politics. I found myself keeping a running journal of passages and phrases, something I never do while reading. These characters are haunting in their realness. As a reader, you'll find yourself thinking about them long after you've finished a story, wondering where they are, how they are, what survival looks like for them on any given day. For those who don't survive, you will grieve. Nafissa Thompson-Spires captures humanity better than most authors I've read, and that is what will ultimately push this collection well beyond the shelves of the literary and social justice audiences to general readers. With any luck, we'll see it in classroom libraries often. Teens need access to this book, and educators need to include it in any discussion of body politics and/or civil rights.

This book helped me realize two things. One, that I wish that more academic, "meant for classroom consumption" books were marketed that way. And two, that short story collections may just not be for me. This is the kind of book that a seminar teacher assigns and then picks apart with a group of students, not a book that you would read for fun.

This collection is razor sharp! Exquisite satire, deep insight, a pleasure to read.