Fantastically written and beautifully original. Thank you for this story.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

I tried to get into this but couldn't. I liked the premise of the book and was really excited to read it, but unfortunately the writing style didn't work for me.

Thanks to Tin House and NetGalley for the e-copy.
DNF (for now?)
I was intrigued by the concept of this novel - a hybrid of essay and fiction exploring our Angolan/Portuguese narrator’s feelings about her countries of origin, her family, colorism, and colonialism, through a deep dive about her hair. However, I’ve picked this up multiple times and have not been able to wrap my brain around the really long sentences. The translator’s note makes it clear that this style was an intentional choice; they explained that Portuguese grammar allows for these longer sentences, and it was up to them to decide “what was simply Portuguese and what was a matter of style.” This philosophical meandering and stream-of-consciousness style just isn’t clicking for me at the moment. I’ll likely try again in the future.

Beautifully written novel that tackles intersectionality from a point of view we don't see enough of.

I appreciated getting to learn more about colorism outside of the US and the perspective of how Black hair is seen in other cultures.

That Hair is a story centering more on the cultural experience of darker skinned Afro-Latinos (Latinas, or Latinix), than on actual hair texture. Eye opening, this book shows us that although we may not be near each other on the globe, the problem of colorism still exists in different forms everywhere. Translated into English from another language, there are times when certain phrases or word pairings don’t make complete sense to the American mind, but the book is chock full of context clues that help with decipher what is what.

it took me 3 tries to get into That Hair by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida and I walked away with an OK read. maybe it was me or the translation but it was so hard to get into. I do plan to give another go as I did find some interesting aspects in the story. Thank you, Tin House Books for this gifted copy.

The fiction of That Hair is the semi-autobiographical story of the author Djaimilla Pereira de Almeida born in Luanda, Angola and growing up in Lisbon, Portugal. This book is much more like an essay and commentary than a novel. Perhaps, that is the book, and perhaps that is the translation. Unfortunately, it leaves me somewhat disconnected with a story with which I expect to feel a strong emotional reaction.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/04/that-hair.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

The writing style often left me confused, but the multicultural interest part was definitely met. The cultural exposition was fun.

Honestly this book just didn't land for me. I think I might be missing a cultural aspect of the book. Maybe there was some thing lost in translation. There was a weird disconnect and it took so long to end. It could have easily been a novella or a think-piece on medium.

This beautiful story shares the experience of a young woman both Portuguese and Angolan. Not fully European nor fully African. Her writing style is both breathtakingly descriptive, This book is wonderfully translated. As this is a story of identity and we are all left having a deeper understanding of the importance hair has on identity around the world. This is also a story that tackles politics, history, family and love.

This book is well written and will draw in any reader leaving them wishing the book were longer.

The publisher made a copy of this book available through Netgalley. The opinion and thoughts here are my honest review.

I enjoyed the Portugal setting and the insight into growing up biracial there in the 1980s. I felt like the prose was a bit awkward and meandering. I don't know if this is a translation issue or what but it was a little tedious to read. I liked it over all though.

I don't have much to say about this novel because I could barely get through the first chapter. The premise is intriguing but the execution is painful. It's to the point that I feel the author is trying too hard to have lyrical and complex prose and the end result is a convoluted mess that failed to grab me.

I want to start off this review by saying, I haven't read a lot of Brazilian fiction and I'm usually wary of translated works,

My expectations weren't met for this memoir and that's ok. I expected a lot more societal commentary and reflections on how the personal is political. However, in this piece, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida focuses on hair as a trait that's passed down from one's gene. It was more of a familial and genetic exploration and observance with hair being a lens or narrative anchor.

The organization of the memoir is different from what I'm accustomed to. It felt like a lot of stories spanning several generations. It is interesting anecdotally and it felt like someone telling you their family history.

2.5 ⭐⭐

That Hair is about so much more than the title suggests. It's about politics, history, family and identity. Rather than taking center focus in the story, Almeida's hair is the heartbeat. The same way some parents document their child's "firsts" (first steps, first words, first day of school, first crush, etc), hairstyles are the pulses by which Alameida marks her own personal growth. The story jumps around a lot: in one moment we're reading about when Almeida-- bullied into believing her hair is ugly and unmanageable-- gets a relaxer; in the next moment she's recounting a time when she brushes her grandmother's hair and realizes it's the only place that feels like "home."

Being both Portuguese and Angolan, Alameida grew up feeling neither African nor European. In Portugal, her curly hair was considered undesirable; it was evidence of her "dirty" blood. In Angola, the texture and curl pattern made it immediately obvious she is not fully Black. Through flashbacks, we witness forces on both sides of her family accepting and rejecting parts of her while she tries to reconcile the disparate pieces of her identity. We also learn about the most important people in life and how her hair relates to when/how she knew those people.

That Hair explains, or attempts to explain, why many people in minority groups insist that it's not "just hair" for us. Alameida implicitly describes how the forces of European colonialism and imperialism have led droves of African women to hair salons in an attempt to maintain eurocentric beauty standards. I appreciated that the story didn't end with a neat conclusion. While Alameida is clearly more comfortable with herself at the end of the book, she admits that she doesn't have it all figured out and that there are people with a better relationship to their hair. Still, she is committed to simply being present, so that younger women can see her and realize that they, too, belong.

The translation is quite artful. In the translator's note (which I highly recommend reading), Becker explains that the Portuguese writing style is totally opposite to the English writing style. Because I can't speak or read Portuguese, I can't comment on how accurate the translation is, but the prose itself was beautiful. My only complaint is that the book was very short. I enjoyed the reasoning behind the lack of conclusion, but it seemed to end rather abruptly. Other than that, I liked it.

It was, okay? The hair journey story is good, but all the other meandering side stories aren’t very cohesive to the story and don’t add much.

An ode to the salon! As an African-American woman, I've been in the salon since I was 9 years old and my mom was tired of fighting me to do my hair. To the salon I go! Relaxed, natural, bald, I've done it all.

I enjoyed reading this and found myself nodding along with the author like yeah girl yeah. I could feel myself there. I enjoyed reading about another person similar to me and what they've been through. Salon experiences take us to a whole new place and way of being just from interacting with those like and unlike ourselves!

Favorite lines in the whole book:

"Visiting salons has been a way of visiting countries and learning to distinguish the features and manners of each, giving new fuel to prejudices. Senegal is a pair of moisturized hands; Angola a certain casualness, a brutal grace; Zaire a disaster; Portugal a burn from a hair dryer, the flesh wound left by a brush."

Dope!

That Hair is a family album of sorts that touches upon the universal subjects of racism, feminism, colonialism, immigration, identity, and memory.

“The story of my curly hair,” says Mila, the narrator of Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s autobiographically inspired tragicomedy, “intersects with the story of at least two countries and, by extension, the indirect story of the relations among several continents: geopolitics.” Mila is the Luanda-born daughter of a black Angolan mother and a white Portuguese father. She arrives in Lisbon at a very young age and feels like an outsider from the jump.

Through the lens of young Mila’s curly hair, her story interweaves memories of childhood and adolescence, family lore spanning four generations, and present-day reflections on the internal and external tensions of a European and African identity.

In layered, intricately constructed prose, That Hair enriches and deepens a global conversation, challenging in necessary ways our understanding of racism, feminism, and the double inheritance of colonialism. It’s the story of coming of age as a black woman in a nation at the edge of Europe that is also rapidly changing, it's also the story of being considered an outsider in one’s own country, and the impossibility of “returning” to a homeland that is also unknown.

I loved the structure of the book because all the stories were entwined with each other and they were all interconnected. The book itself was beautifully written and allowed me to analyze my own journey and experiences when it comes to my hair as a Black woman. What I loved most about this book was the depth it provided by highlighting Portugal and Angola two places I'm not familiar with at all but through the book, I was able to learn more.

This book felt more like an essay writing and I am not sure if because of the translation of the book that it maybe lost something, but in the end this book was not for me. I do however think this would probably suite me better in audio format.

It’s very important for readers to read the translator’s note at the beginning of the book - it helps situate the narrative and the author correctly, and provides helpful information on the structure and the plot.

That Hair is Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s semi-autobiographical story of narrator Mila’s hair: unruly, different, unwilling to be tamed or put into a box. Through the tale of Mila’s hair, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida weaves a tale of family, of colonialism, racism, immigration, identity, and of memory. The narrative reads more like an essay rather than a novel, jumping between short interactions with Mila’s hair, the outside world, and memories of family members, stories passed on between generations, and stories she has lived herself. Born in Angola to a black, Angolan mother, and a white, Portuguese father, Mila arrives in Lisbon at the age of 3, and grows up hovering between the two worlds she lives in, never feeling like she belongs to one or the other.

I loved the structure of this narrative, one storyline revealing another and another, the topic of hair tying together a history of colonialism and its long-term after effects. I also loved how the author manages to create an imperfect jigsaw puzzle in her prose, pieces of the past, present, and future fitting together, but with an unruly, jagged outline. It’s beautifully written, lyrical, and full of images.

I did sometimes get a little confused between names and places, but that comes from not being familiar enough with Portugal and/or Angola. At the same time it made me do a little research while reading which is always a huge positive for me!

I really enjoyed reading this book, it was so gorgeously written, and comes with a depth that was fascinating to dig into, creating challenging discussions that we must all have with each other.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a difficult read for me. It read more like a continuous essay, which is completely fine, it’s just not what I thought it would be. A lot of times, the story would go off track and I’d have to go back to figure out if I missed a page.
I will try to read this book again at a later time to see if it becomes easier to me.