I was a little disappointed by this book -- Dawn Turner is a talented writer, and this book is well-written, but I didn't really get into the book until about halfway through. I wasn't really sure what the focus or main narrative thread of the book was until that point. I did enjoy the back half of the book, though.

Three Girls from Bronzeville is the true story of two sisters and a friend who grew up on the south side of Chicago in the 1970s-80s. The story is told from the point of view of the author, whose sister and friend followed a considerably harder and riskier path than she did. Turner is a trained journalist and the book reads like long-form journalism. What struck me the most about this story was Turner’s lived observations of the changes that occurred in her neighborhood over time and how its residents were failed time and again by the leaders whose choices exacerbated the neighborhood’s decline. When she was young she and her friends could walk back and forth to school and explore to their heart’s desire, but those days are long gone. Special thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for a memorable read.

Dawn Turner's memoir is beautifully written and flows nicely. I could easily visualize each scenario and home in every chapter so I felt quite immersed in the lives of the three girls. The stories of Kim and Debra are heartbreaking, with Debra's story simultaneously making quite a positive impact. Debra is an amazing example of a person who truly goes within to examine what has happened and how she can not only make the best of her situation, but rise above it be an example for others. After reading her story I want to dig deep and find where I too can do better. Thank you, Dawn, for sharing your memoir with us!

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

As a narrative, this is a terrific book. Turner tells her stories, focusing on the paths taken by her sister, her best friend, and herself. As I would expect from a newspaper writer, her stories flow. The book fell short for me, though, because despite the stories the characters themselves are treated more as subjects of a reporter than individual human beings. As I read, I kept thinking that these stories might have worked even better as a novel, in which places and feelings could be examined more deeply and in which each of the three principal characters could tell her story from her own perspective. but, that's not the book Turner set out to write and I cannot fault her for producing what is a readable relatable story.

A very enjoyable and interesting book, but sometimes a bit of a slow read that balanced itself precariously between a novel and expository prose. While Turner provides a fascinating memoir about "three girls from Bronzeville," I felt it seemed to miss a few elements I look for in a traditional memoir.

I did enjoy it and can see why it has such hype around it.


Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this work in exchange for my honest review.

*Finished Sept 2021

This is a story of three girls, Dawn Turner, her younger sister Kim, and her best friend Debra. All three have their own individual struggles while growing up in Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood in Chicago's south side. The audio for this was great, and this is told from Dawn's perspective throughout. This is not an easy listen, for there is a lot of heartbreak, struggle, and loss in here, and how it affects Dawn throughout her life not only adds to her resilience but makes her a better friend and sister than most of us could ever be.

This is definitely worth the read, it is well written, Dawn is an award winning journalist so I expected as much, but I was drawn in from the beginning and loved the way she captured the setting along with connecting the reader to her family. I think this is an important read and one that I will be recommending for a while.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the digital galley to review.

Having lived in Greater Chicago and Chicago itself for many years now, I’d heard of Bronzeville on several occasions. However, I’d never particularly had reason to venture that far south in the city often. So, when cracking the virtual spine of Three Girls From Bronzeville took me there in the 1970s, I found myself educated and intrigued.

Known as the “Black Metropolis,” this part of the city is a bit of a mystery for folks who tend to stay in the north end of town. But now, because of this book, I’m eager to venture down and explore this city and look for all the places mentioned by the author in this stirring memoir. I know many are gone, but I’d still love to find the remaining spots.

Three Girls From Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood is, indeed, a stirring memoir of growing up in a distinct era in Chicago when housing projects were on the rise, segregation “chic” (in some eyes only, of course) and folks had a vision for making the best of that segregation that they could to make life better.

The evocative journey of the three girls – sisters and friends – into the world of womanhood had me riveted from page one. Some of the fascination, I admit, is my sheer lack of knowledge of Black culture in that period in my city – and overall, admittedly.

Dawn Turner is a gifted author with beautiful turns of phrases, an intriguing narrative style, and a uniquely distinct voice. I highly recommend anyone who’s looking for a good read check this out. I also highly recommend this read to anyone looking to grow up a bit in their own view of Chicago and Black culture.

The narrative is well-plotted, the pace even and exciting, and the textures spiny and smooth by turn. So give the book a read, let the adventures and exploration deepen your own understanding, and enjoy this delightful, albeit painful, tale from Bronzeville.

This was a great read. I felt as if I were back in the same time with those girls, as they are my contemporaries. I would have liked a bit more descriptions of the other two girls lives after high school. It felt like it went from them being pre-teens to adults with problems. I will be recommending it widely.

Award-winning journalist Dawn Turner turns her investigative eye on her own life and upbringing in THREE GIRLS FROM BRONZEVILLE, a piercing and illuminating memoir about being Black in America, and the ways that racism intersects issues of class and opportunity. In offering her firsthand account of growing up in the historic neighborhood of Bronzeville on Chicago’s South Side, along with chronicles of the lives of her childhood best friend and sister, Turner paints an unforgettable portrait of a neighborhood, a family and a country.

At only three square miles, Bronzeville is the cradle of Chicago’s Great Migration, the epicenter of Black business and culture. Once a training ground for Union Army soldiers, then a prisoner-of-war camp for Confederate troops, and finally the neighborhood where Chicago forced its influx of new Black citizens to live, Bronzeville is a study in contrasts. Throughout its lifetime, it has been home to activist Ida B. Wells, jazz musician Louis Armstrong, novelist Richard Wright, poet Gwendolyn Brooks and, finally, Turner’s family.

When we meet Dawn and her younger sister, Kim, they are fourth-generation Bronzeville residents who are finally starting to take hold of all that the country can offer them. Following a brief period of homelessness thanks to their feckless father, the girls and their mother have just moved into the privately owned Theodore K. Lawless Gardens apartment complex, three 24-story buildings meant to reflect the upward mobility of their residents. Also living in their building is Debra, a girl Dawn’s age who could not be more different from her. Debra is a precocious troublemaker, as short as Dawn is tall, and for a while they do not even realize they live only floors apart.

For the first third of the book, Turner takes great care to introduce us to her family --- the women who gossip in code, sitting pigeon-toed at the dining room table, and the men, loud-voiced and smelling of cologne and cigar smoke, who joke and flirt with their wives from separate rooms. It is immediately clear that her family is woven into every bit of Bronzeville, a tenacious group of people who took the run-down, squalid tenements left to them by the city and, as Dawn’s Granny says, “did what Black people have always done: We took a bunch of scraps and stitched together a world.” For all his flaws, Dawn’s father is the embodiment of this philosophy, a man so charming that he once convinced Dawn’s mother to marry him, and later persuaded a landlord to let him and his family rent-to-buy an entire building. Unfortunately, charm does not always equal respectability or a penchant for the truth, and Dawn’s parents eventually divorce.

Shortly after the divorce, Dawn and her family move up to the 11th floor, a place without echoes of her father or his violence. It is then that she finally meets Debra, a girl she had always noticed and even admired in school, but who was never close enough in her orbit to befriend. Before long, Dawn, Debra and Kim are inseparable. Together they become “Thing-Finders,” in the vein of their idol, Pippi Longstocking. As they collect their treasures and whisk them away to their “love spot,” the roof of a small utility building, they dream about their futures, agreeing to become doctors and buy houses next door to one another like the families they admire on sitcoms.

Dawn is already on the right track, bookish and studious, and as her nature rubs off on Debra, she too starts to think before she acts. But already the differences between the girls are becoming more obvious. When Debra’s family moves her to Indianapolis, afraid she is becoming too involved with a bad crowd, their friendship, as well as their paths, start to fracture and bend away from one another. Left with only her sister, Dawn befriends new children at school, including a boy who challenges her to give her intelligence a chance and see where it can take her. As Dawn enters advanced studies, begins to date and gets accepted into the University of Illinois, Kim follows a different path, one that involves substance abuse and a whole lot of grief.

What makes Dawn Turner --- as a character and as a writer --- so excellent to read is her willingness to explore and share the full picture, never once shaming or criticizing Debra or Kim. Although Dawn reads as the success story of the group, she too is touched by the choices of her earliest friends, and it is this sensitivity that makes her retellings of the lives of Debra and Kim so pure rather than voyeuristic. Instead, like a true journalist, Turner asks “why?” Why did three girls, all born in the same city of Black excellence and history, who dreamed of stable careers and warm houses, end up in such wildly different scenarios? As Turner shows, while the decisions were each girl’s own, the blame can be laid only on America’s racist structure and its razor-thin margin for error for girls --- people --- of color.

As much as I enjoyed Turner’s search for answers, the first third of the book was a bit dry, enough to turn away a reader who is not committed. The pacing could have been tightened, but the narrative would have been helped by a family tree. Turner describes her entire family in such detail that it was often difficult to determine who her touchstones were, or how they connected to one another. That said, the book picks up in the second and third parts. Again, it is Turner’s gaze --- compassionate but piercing, questioning but understanding --- that really propels the narrative forward and helps her arguments about sisterhood and the struggles of Black women. The complex ties between racism and opportunity come to searing, immediate life.

Perfect for fans of Jeff Hobbs’ THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE and Gigi Georges’ DOWNEAST, THREE GIRLS FROM BRONZEVILLE is, as its subtitle says, a truly unique and hauntingly American exploration of race, fate and sisterhood.

Dawn Turner is an gifted writer and story tellers and I found myself completely engaged in this book from the moment I started it! This book is such a special and important look into black girlhood and all the struggles, relationships and nuances.

Dawn Turner's Three Girls from Bronzeville gives a uniquely intimate look into the lives of three women coming of age in the South Side of Chicago in the '70s. Dawn (the writer), her sister, and her best friend are the three subjects profiled, and the lives and ways their fortunes diverge serve as a microcosm for larger issues of race and class.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood by journalist Dawn Turner is about her, her sister (Kim), and her best friend (Debra) growing up in the 1970s in the Bronzeville neighborhood in Chicago. The memoir also recounts how their lives would eventually all go in various directions and the struggles they endured in adulthood. Poignant read. I just reviewed Three Girls from Bronzeville by Dawn Turner. #NetGalley

3 Girls From Bronzeville is the story of author Dawn Turner, her sister Kim, and her best friend Debra, who grew up in Chicago. Each of their lives diverged drastically, but their bonds were strong.

Near the end of the book, Dawn talks about Brenda Myers-Powell. I read her memoir recently- Leaving Breezy Street. I loved the connection between the two books. Both are difficult memoirs to read, but also filled with hope after experiencing devastating situations.

Thank you to NetGalley for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was excited about this book as I really enjoy memoirs and the descriptions of this book sounded exactly like what I prefer to read. Also, I saw several reviews that praised this book.. However, i was very disappointed. The content is fine...two sisters and a friend come of age in housing projects; each tries to find her way, comparing herself to the others.

However, this book fell flat for me because of the writing style. It told, but didn't show. Frankly, I was bored. It seemed to me like a string of narrated events; the writing was, for lack of a better word, blah. I couldn't immerse myself in the book or the events. I know that my opinion is in the minority.

Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood lives up to its title. Dawn, Debra and Kim live in Chicago's historic Bronzeville community. Their lives are shaped in the three square miles that are the epicenter of Black business and culture. Doctors, lawyers, street vendors, Black entrepreneurs and impressionable children make up its residents. In this coming-of-age memoir, forces bring three black girls closer while other events cause their friendship to falter at times. Dawn chronicles the dramatic turns their lives take over the decades.

Parts of this memoir brought back memories. Dawn Turner's writing is so descriptive that when she mentioned "bags of sawdust for absorbing vomit," my mind immediately went to the distinct smell and circumstance because I was that kid that vomited with every migraine in school. I couldn't always make it to the waste bin or restroom fast enough. Hence, the sawdust.

Another memory sparked when Dawn would describe the close-knit community of Bronzeville. I have a close friend that lives there now and it all sounded familiar through her words. She crafted a story for fellow city girls to relate and reminisce of their own best friends and sisters growing up.

Yet Three Girls from Bronzeville lacked the riveting factor that the summary promises. There were more slow parts than interesting. But ultimately the miss for me was the distant narrative. For the author to be one of the main girls, it felt very outside-looking-in-ish. Perhaps the author had to distance herself from the memories in order to write about them but it unfortunately came across as an observer's judgment rather than recalling own experiences. Nevertheless, whether you are a black city girl or like to read memoirs, then try reading it.

Happy Pub Day, Dawn Turner! Three Girls from Bronzeville is now available.

~LiteraryMarie

A thought-provoking memoir about three little girls who grew up together in the south side of Chicago, but whose lives went in completely different directions.
This was an intimate look into not just the lives of the author and her family, but of a city and way of life as well.
Thanks to #netgalley and #simonschuster for this ARC of #threegirlsfrombronzeville in exchange for an honest review.

THREE GIRLS FROM BRONZEVILLE by Dawn Turner is subtitled "A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood." Turner is an award-winning former reporter and commentator for The Chicago Tribune and other media outlets. This memoir tells her story of growing up on the South Side in 1970s Chicago with her younger sister, Kim, and her best friend, Debra. As these girls become women their lives diverge – one becomes pregnant when still a teenager; another starts using drugs and is eventually accused of murder. Over the decades, the neighborhood also shifts and so Turner provides insight on class, racism, and opportunity in a thoroughly engaging manner. Did you know, for example, that these people also lived in Bronzeville at some point: Ida B. Wells, Louis Armstrong, Richard Wright, and Gwendolyn Brooks? This text is filled with vivid descriptions and multiple generations of strong women. I wish that I could write as well as Turner – THREE GIRLS FROM BRONZEVILLE received starred reviews from Booklist (recommended for teen readers, too), Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. This title could join literature circles featuring The Other Wes Moore and The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Pearce.

In this beautifully-written memoir, Turner explores how the three women were shaped by their choices and how Bronzeville shaped them. It was clear how much she loved Kim and Debra and how she believed in them. But she also was very honest and didn’t flinch from the hard things in their lives. Overall, it was an enlightening look at the racism and classism that Black women struggle with. Statistics can numb but stories likes Turner’s can open hearts.

A memoir with a smattering of reported journalism about Dawn Turner, her sister Kim , and her best friend Debra. The book follows their childhood together and the ways their lives went in different directions.
•
•
This book disappointed me. The characters and events were compelling but the book itself was underwhelming. At first I couldn’t figure out why I was uncomfortable with the book, but I eventually realized it was rooted in a kind of individualism that was really toxic. Turner ends up in college and as a successful journalist. Kim and Debra do not have that luck. Throughout the book Dawn chastises the other women for their choices and ignores the structural apparatuses that have led the women in one direction or another. The book came off very “if I could do it, why can’t you?”
•
•
I don’t want to spoil the book too much but I’ll say this, I found Turner to be playing into outdated talking points of bootstraps and reform. I wish she’d reported more about Chicago and the laws and politics that led to the crack epidemic and over aggressive policing etc. What living through that was like for young Black women. The book instead is lacking in context so it reads very victim blaming and pro status quo subjugation of Black folks.

This is a beautiful, moving memoir. It covers friendship, the love of family and how hard growing up can be. I loved how easy it was to read, the beginning is engaging and interesting. As the story got harder to read, and sad at times, I was completely absorbed and was rooting for and brokenhearted for the characters in turn. I'm so glad I read this one.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.