The author very clearly did a lot of "work" to emotionally process her childhood and relationship with her mother. I would say that this memoir is for you if you want to learn more about how race identity is constructed. I loved the detail and how the author was able to go back into her past to analyze how different memories effected her identity as an adult.

As a person who identifies as multiracial, I struggled through this book and reckoning with the structure of Valentine’s narrative of disconnection from her lineage. For this being the premise of the book, the most intimate and effecting details happen in her familiar conversations, but there are also long scenes that don’t feel as relevant to the journey we are on with her. I think we follow this uncertainty of her voice through the whole text, part of which lends to the identity discovery, but also the narrative feel uncertain of itself, uncertain of what we should take from her journey.

I want to thank St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

So this is actually a really hard review for me to write. I am a biracial 41 year old woman who was also raised in rural Pennsylvania on my family's dairy farm no less. My mother is white, of Irish/English descent, and my father is Black. I have no memories of him or any of his family members since my parents split just before I turned 2.
I requested this book because I had hoped that Ms. Valentine and I would have some similarities in our experiences growing up. I was not raised to be "White" nor did my family shy away from my race. Correction...my mother refused to let me wear my hair natural because she didn't know what to do with it or know anyone who could help so it was always in a bun, pigtails, or braids until I was 10 and then she had some salon chemically relax my very, very loose curls with a maximum strength treatment. I had a burnt scalp and fried hair so I learned to work with it myself. Growing up I had great friends and outside of a joke told in poor taste I really didn't experience too many issues. I consider myself to be pretty fortunate. My life was not perfect,like Ms. Valentine, I also had a strained relationship with my mother because of my racial identity.
Once I went away to college I made friends of all different races. I have many friends who are biracial and the main similarity we all have in common is that we all had slightly different experiences depending on our skin tones. I am what would be considered as "light-skinned" and my hair texture and features make me "racially ambiguous". I read this book and a lot of the things she talks about resonated with me but overall, honestly, I really just didn't care for it. She is clearly very intelligent but I felt the writing sometimes was to academic for the average reader to enjoy. I had a really hard time understanding with her not exploring her identity until she was in her late 20's.

It was a good book but , for me, not a great book so I am giving it 3 stars.

A revealing look by the author a child who thought she was white a member of the white race by birth and then made the discovery she was black.An eye opening look at race at her life after she made this life changing realization of her true race.#netgalley#st.martins

This memoir is fascinating to me. I have not experienced this myself but certainly have friends with biracial children or who are biracial themselves and have seen how that has affected them. I've always been interested in the questions surrounding why race is even an issue in the world, children don't make it an issue. They simply use it to describe each other the way one would use height or hair length or glasses or not to identify a friend to another person. But it has no additional implication expect as we age because it is a learned concept within society. So I can completely understand how a girl, who is shown nothing but love and support from her two white parents would assume that she is also white. Why wouldn’t she? Would a child question why their parents have one color hair or eyes and they have another? No. They accept that they are loved and cared for. I definitely think that the harder aspect of this memoir is the author’s experience of feeling lied to throughout her young life because of the information withheld from her about her natural father. I can empathize with her but also with her mother in this because no one knows the "right" thing to do in that situation and so they hopefully do their best. People aren't perfect and this certainly would be a difficult situation. Its really a fascinating reality though to suddenly have a different ethnicity than you believed you had and it made you feel differently about yourself or your background at first. It would be a lot to wrap you head around but like living both sides of a coin, seeing the truth of racial injustice and the good and the bad in people. But already knowing both sides. What insight it would give you. This actually will likely turn out to be a tremendous gift. With her ability as a writer, I see this author going far in advancing the dialogue of race relations for the better. And more power to her.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a personal account of race in America. Well done.
#WhenIWasWhite #Netgalley #StMartinsPress #SarahValentine

This was such a hard book to rate. Overall, I give it 3.5 but bumping it up to 4. Being biracial can’t be easy. To go through your whole life identifying as white because that’s what you were told you are, then finding out about your Black roots and wanting to embrace. There is so much more to Valentine’s story and I’m trying to be sympathetic with her mother, but something isn’t right and her story of how Valentine came to be isn’t adding up. Valentine provided great information on racial inequalities, but I wish she would have given us more about her life. It’s a bummer that we never find out if she finds her father. Too many unanswered questions.
Many thanks to Netgalley & St. Martin press for gifting me this copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I Was White by Sarah Valentine is a memoir about her childhood growing up in rural Pennsylvania, in an Irish/Italian family as a white girl. This novel explores Sarah’s childhood and how she felt as though she never really fit in. Then in her adult life she learned that her biological father, was not the Irish dad she grew up with, but in fact an African American man she had never known, or heard her mom speak of.

At the age of 27, when she finds out this information Sarah begins to question everything that has happened in her childhood. She re-evaluates her life through a new lens; the lens of a mixed woman.

This book was interesting and I found myself immediately googling the author to see her picture. I did find the photo she talks about in the book; Sarah with her two brothers. I wish the book explored Sarah’s mother more, I think their relationship was an interesting part of the book. Overall I felt as though the memoir could have been condensed a lot. I feel as though it would have been better as an article rather than a book.

I found Sarah’s book, “When I Was White” enlightening because she was able to see and experience different perspectives: the white American’s view on race as well as the view from that of a mixed-race African American.

I too remember the Reagan-era. I remember being told how America was the best country in the world, and how all other countries needed to meet America’s standards, and if they didn’t, they were considered inferior. While as a child, this view resonated as a country perception, I didn’t realize how this rhetoric influenced the mindset of certain groups of people.

What I liked most about the book were the insights into the mind of how some white Americans have perceived race and African Americans. It helped me to look at situations involving discrimination and prejudice with a better understanding of the mentality that led to misinformed thoughts and statements.

I do feel for Sarah’s experience. I think discovering a new identity is one earth shattering revelation, but the conception alone is something that’s very hard to gather, and I am glad to learn that she sought therapy in dealing with this matter. I am happy to learn how her mother continuously restated her love for Sarah.

My only frustration when reading the book was that in earlier chapters Sarah didn’t describe her features. Black is a color, but being of African descent implies an ethnicity. The anthropology alone suggests a different bone structure as a result of the climatic environment. It would have been helpful if Sarah provided more physical descriptions of herself.

While I read, I tried to imagine Sarah. I started with Megan Markle and then Halsey, who both have some racial ambiguity and could pass for white. I thought of friends who happen to share Sarah’s similar racial background, but none of them would make a Nigerian man single them out in a predominantly white environment and dress them up in African garb. It was interesting how the professor/scholar from Louisiana took one look at her and figured her out. Now that I think of it, his response to her was a very telling physical description of Sarah on its own.

It wasn’t until a third of the way through the book. I got a glimpse of what Sarah looked like. She previously described her skin-color, but learning she had a button-nose helped. “Oh okay, okay I have a “button-nose too,” I thought. Then finally, I did a search online, and found photos of Sarah. Number one, she’s beautiful, but she also resembled one of my African-American cousins.

Ultimately, this is a great book for someone attempting to uncover their racial/ethnic identity or attempting to grasp their identity. It helps them to feel that they aren’t alone on their journey. Sarah’s book takes on two very strong topics that could have been addressed separately, especially if she wanted to delve into these topics even more. She could have written two books: one about her ethnic identity, and one about her conception. Both delving into the journey of revelation, understanding, and coming to peace or resolution with both experiences.

This book seems to try to add words to thicken the book rather than actual story of interest. It just was maybe a bit to quick to press and could use a bit more fine tuning for me bc it seemed too much and not enough at once.

Review posted on Instagram @tackling_tbr, on Facebook at Tackling TBR, and on my blog at tacklingtbr.home.blog.

{ partner } Thanks so much to NetGalley, the author, and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are entirely my own.

I knew that I was interested in this book early on before publication, because I love getting to learn about different perspectives and read about experiences that I wouldn't necessarily have in my lifetime. This memoir definitely fit the bill in that respect. This was a really interesting read, although I will say that it isn't exactly a fun or easy read. Like, I wouldn't take it to the beach or anything, but I am glad that I got the chance to read it.

That being said, I don't think that this will end up being my favorite read of the summer. There was a ton of really amazing detail throughout the entire book, about everything - but at times there was a bit more detail than I really needed about certain aspects of the author's story and it made parts of the book seem a bit long. Things like knowing exactly what stop she used on the subway, and all of the stops that lead up to it, and the entire layout of the shops and city. While I know that where you grow up and where you go to college tend to have a great impact on a person's story so I definitely don't mind a bit of that type of background and detail, but it seemed to me that it took up a good chunk of the book and made it a bit of a slow read for me. It's completely personal preference, but it just made the book drag a bit for me in some parts.

This story, and the author, are definitely at their best when they're focused on the human interactions - specifically between the author and her mother, as well as the rest of her family. One of the best things about non-fiction, when written in a truthful and realistic tone, is that you get to see the flaws that everybody has. This author and her family are no exception, but her mom is especially fascinating, and the many conversations that take place between she and the author surrounding her true parentage (both before it is really revealed to her as well as after) are incredibly interesting. I loved getting to see behind the curtain a little bit and get a taste of what those difficult conversations would have looked like.

I will say that if you are a reader who prefers happy endings that are tied up in a bow, this may not do it for you. The author is a strong, independent woman who finds herself through the course of finding who she is, and through becoming in touch with the heritage that she wasn't sure she shared. And in that fact alone, it is a happy ending. But know that there are still many questions that are left unanswered. For instance, despite all of her research and looking, by the end of the story the author has not met her biological father. But maybe along the way her strength showed her that maybe she didn't need to after all.

This story gave me a very different look into white privilege, biracial identity, and other topics that I wouldn't have had this insight into on my own. And I would recommend it to anyone else who would like to take a closer look at one of the many stories of identity and change and finding who we are, specifically a story that may be very different than ours. Just know that it may be a bit of a long read, so prepare yourself to wade through some lengthy bits of description. And I'm not kidding, probably not a beach read. Preferably read it while sitting by a fireplace with a blanket and a cup of tea or a glass of wine. Trust me, you'll want to feel cozy!

While this book goes quite in depth into racial inequalities and the effects racism can have on an individual, this book did not hold my attention very well

What I loved about this book:

~ Sarah's story is told with brutal honesty and doesn't hold back. I can't imagine how hard it was for her to put her life out there for judgement and talk about her mental illness. She has a level of bravery very few have.

~ Her toxic upbringing was told without villainizing her Mother. I felt bad for her father, but they were both responsible for withholding such a major aspect of her heritage. Her mother was racist, selfish, and cruel, but I can't tell if it's due to her circumstances or because of her own possible mental illness.

~ The support of her brothers and her other family members is the saving grace of her upbringing. They were all supportive and loved her regardless of her race.

What kept me from giving this book 5⭐?

While there were certain stories that I wish we shorter, I really wished she would have spent more time on her marriage. I think the book could have benefited from shortening it a bit, but I understand her need to tell her story the way she felt it needed to be told. While I found her story intriguing, it just wasn't one that kept my attention. I personally wouldn't recommend this book, but I feel that others may enjoy this book and should give it a shot.

In Sarah Valentine’s Memoir she grows up knowing that’s she doesn’t really look like the white family and friends she is surrounded by. Her race is something that is eluded to, even joked about but never really discussed. When she is in her twenties her mother confirms her fears that her dad is not her biological father and she is indeed bi-racial. Her relationship with her mom is strained as she is not quite sure she believes her story of how she was conceived. She struggles with depression and other disorders as she struggles to figure out where she belongs and what it means to now live as a black person. Though she feels loved by her dad, She can’t stop herself from continually searching for her biological father. Many times family secrets are kept to “protect” and shield loved ones from hurt. As I have personally experienced, in the end, perpetuating a lie or non-truth is much more damaging than the truth.

Sarah Valentine was raised to believe that she was white, and that her dark complexion was the product of her Greek ancestors. But whereas she does have Greek ancestry in her DNA, Sarah is also of African descent. This strange but compelling, searingly honest memoir came to me courtesy of Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press; it will be available to the public tomorrow, August 6, 2019.

Valentine is an excellent writer, and she spins us back in time to her childhood, spent in a private school, a Catholic upper middle class family, celebrating European cultural events. She is the only African-American or mixed race student at her school, and every now and then, someone there will make a remark that infers she is Black. This puzzles her. Her own mother makes remarks bordering on White Supremacy, assumptions about the habits and character of Black people; of course, none of this should apply to Sarah, in her view, because she insists that Sarah is Greek and Irish, and Irish, and Irish.

Reading of her experiences, I am initially surprised that such culturally clueless, entirely white parents would be permitted to adopt a Black child; but here’s the thing. She isn’t adopted. She is her mother’s biological child, and to talk about who her biological father is, is to recognize that her mother was not always faithful to her father. It’s a keg of dynamite, one that her parents carefully navigate around. Not only have they not spoken about this to Sarah; they have not spoken about it to each other. It is a fiction that holds their marriage together; toss a tablecloth over that keg of TNT there and for goodness sake, don’t bump it.

I came away feeling sorry for her father.

There’s a lot more going on between Sarah and her parents, particularly her mother, a talented but not entirely stable parent who assigns impossible standards to her daughter. Meanwhile, as Sarah grows up and leaves for college, the fiction of her heritage is uncovered, first as a mere suspicion, then later as fact.

This isn’t an easy read or a fun one. It can’t be. Sarah’s pain bleeds through the pages as we see the toxic ingredients and outcomes in her story; her mother’s mental health and her own, as well as eating disorders and the implosion of her parents’ marriage. The particulars of her lifelong struggle make it impossible to draw a larger lesson in terms of civil rights issues; there are some salient points that will speak to women that grew up in the mid-20th century as Sarah’s mother did, and as I did. And here we find one small spark of optimism, the fact that when women are raped, whether at college or elsewhere, we stand a greater chance of being believed than we did in the past. Still, it’s a grim tale overall, and I don’t think there’s any other way Sarah could honestly have told it.

“When I Was White” is a memoir of a young woman growing up questioning herself, her identity, her family, and her personal experiences related to racial
ambiguity. I always commend authors for telling and sharing their own personal stories, though it may be emotional and hard for them to do, and I especially welcome and appreciate lessons and insight that their stories provide. I cannot relate personally to what the author has experienced, but she was able to fully demonstrate her uncertainty, her frustrations, her doubt, and her pain in a way that touched my heart and gave me a glimpse of what it must have been like for her.

When I Was White, by Sarah Valentine, is a provocative memoir of a woman whose life-long suspicions are confirmed when she finds out, at age 27, that she is biracial. The story of how she deals with the emotional upheaval of learning that some of her most basic “truths” were not real, and how she integrates her African-American identity into her being should have been compelling and heart-rendering. It was not. It lacks nuance and context in terms of perspective, compassion, and history. Sarah’s story is neither black nor white, it is blood-red with justifiable anger for having been lied to and denied her heritage. However, even years after the revelation, she shows no compassion for her mother who was subject to trauma of some sort or the father who raised and loved her. She acknowledges but is dismissive of the fact that she was raised in a loving family, where she has had every economic advantage, and has benefited from white privilege.
When I first started reading, I thought the author must have been born in the 1940’s, not 1977. There is no mention of the impact of the Civil Rights movement, the laws that followed or Title IX, which prohibited discrimination based on sex. There was a missed opportunity to talk about why these legal remedies might have been less than satisfactory, and how systemic racism is. We see evidence of it and individual hate every day in the news. Instead, the reader is bombarded with instances of slights Sarah assumes stem from racist perceptions of who she is. She may be right, but she never seems to ask or confront in an era where African American men and women are judges, deans, presidents of universities and in 2007, running for president.
Finally, we never learn the true story of Sarah’s conception. Sarah may never have learned the truth, or it might not have been her story to tell. As with many reconstructions of fact, it is often a cobbling of what some wish had happened, vague memories, and denial of reality. But I was troubled by her description of her biological father as “real,” and felt that the father that raised her deserved better.
The author deserves much credit for sharing her story, and her pain. I would not have been so courageous. Thanks so much to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for giving me an opportunity to read the electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am giving this book 3 stars. If it weren't a memoir, it would get 2, but I always like to take into consideration why the book was written and the fact that it just plain takes a whole lot of guts to lay your life out there. For that, you get a star. And wow! Ms. Valentine sure has a life to lay out there. Raised as a 100% white woman, at age 27 (yes, 27) she finds out that she is in fact biracial and that her biological father is black, actual origins unknown, and supposedly a rapist. Which leads to my first question: why does she obsess so much about wanting to meet and get to know him? Maybe his family or about his background, but him as a person? No thank you. I spent a good portion of the book trying to figure out why Ms. Valentine didn't confront her parents earlier than age 27, especially when she spent way too much time during the course of the book pointing out events that indicated that there was something amiss. In fact, a lot of time in this book is spent on events that could have easily been edited out and made for a better book. However, again this is where the idea of it being a memoir comes in to play. If this book is for Ms. Valentine's benefit, then it should include whatever she wants. It could include a list of the jelly used on her daily sandwich for lunch. But, when offered to the public to read, the focus changes a bit. (Maybe this is why I expect never to write a memoir?) Through most of the book I sympathized with Ms. Valentine. Yet, in my very subjective opinion, I thought her outrage should have been focused on having been lied to and not about her actual parentage. Instead, she starts to get upset about the institutionalized racism around her. I was a bit upset that she hadn't been concerned about it before. But I guess now it is her problem? Second, I felt like her viewing of the world through her new lens was a bit over the top. No, I did not text a black friend last night and ask her if, when she walks in a room she notices and counts every single other black person. This seems unnatural. Is Ms. Valentine doing this because she is becoming more aware? This connection is not made. Instead it seemed another part of being outraged at her parentage. Misplaced anger. This anger caused other issues to arise that made me scratch my head. Ms. Valentine assumed that someone wondered why she studied Soviet literature if she wasn't born there because she was black. I don't understand this. Maybe they wondered why she studied Soviet literature period. I studied Russian in college and was frequently asked why. I am not Russian. I am not black. I was someone interested in learning a foreign language and tired of French. To assume the question was racially motivated was going a bit too far. In the context of this been recognized as Ms. Valentine becoming overwhelmed with her racial revelation, it would have made sense. But that connection is never made. Several connections are never made. So I will chalk this memoir up as a way for Ms. Valentine to write down her feelings and impressions but not as a document for outsiders to read for a greater understanding of the issues.

When I Was White by Sarah Valentine is a memoir of her life from childhood to adult. Sarah was raised as a white child in the Pittsburgh area. She went to Catholic school for part of her young life. People questioned her background but seemed to accept the answer that her father is Italian and dark skinned. Her mother is very controlling and keeps the family secrets and memories as she sees them, not necessarily as they really are. What happens when, as an adult, Sarah realizes her features don’t match the family and her biological father is actually black? Can she believe her mother’s story of what happened? Is there anyone she can trust for the truth?
This book was okay. Being a true story makes it difficult to disagree with the authors telling of experiences but some seemed really unbelievable to me. I give this book 3 of 5 stars. Some parts drug on too long and got a bit boring as well as taking away from the story. There were also a few editing errors that made for confusion. In one incidence it is stated her brother was unable to come home and then was there.
I received an advance copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I had a hard time deciding how to rate this book. The author has a fascinating story to tell with important insights into race and identity in America. But this book is in need of a lot of editing. At times the narrative is choppy without enough details to be able to follow the story, but in other places it is overly verbose. I did read an ARC, but they are usually in better shape this close to publication. I'll hold out hope that a good editor goes through it before it is published because it is a 5 star story that everyone could benefit from reading.

Valentine explores her childhood and questions that went unanswered for years. As the oldest daughter she was reared to culturally identify as white, but realized she also was African-American. Her biological father is black and when her mother finally admitted that, the author continued to be frustrated as her mother changed the story of her conception or claimed she didn't remember. Valentine explores her cultural roots and struggles with her own Identity. She also plumbs other resources to discover who her biological father is. This was an interesting read.

Sarah Valentine grew up one of three children of white parents of Italian and Irish heritage. She was consistently told by her parents that she was white and her mother deliberately discouraged Valentine’s interest in African-American bands. But, as the title of this memoir implies, Sarah’s biological father, of whom she knew nothing, was African-American. This memoir, of course, has the benefit of hindsight and Valentine recounts her experiences in childhood where others around her seemed to intuit the truth that she didn’t see in herself. This wonderful memoir highlights the ways that race is a social construct, but also the ways in which physical attributes trigger ingrained, perhaps subconscious responses. Once Valentine confronts her parents and learns the truth, she finds herself in uncharted territory. Ultimately, she “comes out” as African-American, but without the family and cultural upbringing, she wrestles with what it means for her to Be Black. A fascinating book that raises questions of upbringing, culture and biology.