I really enjoyed the insights this book had to provide regarding racism, and some of the essays were really good! I enjoyed the writing style a lot too, and my only issue with this book is probably structure-related as I found it difficult to enjoy the essays as a "collection". I had to take breaks between the essays as I struggled to jump immediately from one to the other, and then discovered I have to flip back and read the previous ones regardless to figure out what is going on in the current one. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review an early copy!

It isn’t often that I get to read a book this important for free, a book this filled with truth, hard truths, about life in America as a Black woman. Most of the books I get are novels I choose from a wide selection, and I love them, but I rarely get to choose something like this, so I jumped at the chance. I feel I’ve done the author a disservice by waiting so long to review it, but I really wanted to do it well.

I still don’t know if this is going to be good enough, for the book, for the author, for me, but I’m going for it, regardless.

First, I’d like to thank NetGalley, Convergent Books, and Marcie Alvis Walker for giving me the chance to read and review this ARC. I’m very grateful for this opportunity and I’ll try to do it justice.

Walker split her memoir into three parts, titled Black, Woman, and Holy, and I think those do a good job of summarizing the overall theme and message of the book. Her essays, while all personal, shine a light on issues that are often swept aside, like racism, division, inequality, colorism, classism, and their persistent and changing faces throughout time, often made more palatable to society at large so that their outcome is the same, but their appearance is easier to accept and applaud.

Marcie Alvis Walker’s memoir dives deep into the racial fault lines of our nation, as it must. Growing up and living as a dark-skinned Black girl and woman in America, she had no choice but to feel every bit of that racism reflected upon her in the way the world around her treated her. She also writes of it affecting the life of her Black nonbinary child.

Walker describes experiences she had with vivid descriptions, details highlighted, and she then links them to a greater point, a message of – not racism, no, but justice, peace, equality, and equity. She experienced (and still experiences!) racism, and that is why she expects more and better of her fellow Americans, of the US itself.

She instills a sense of holiness throughout the entire book, not just condensing it into the section titled ‘Holy’. She ties Biblical references to her life, makes them personal, and the way she portrays the Bible, religion, even God, with her words is mystifying to me, a pseudo-atheist, but it’s also appealing and beautiful. She sounds as though she really believes that everyone is holy and that this should be a source of connection between people.

I’d like to include a section of the book for context.

There’s an event she describes that happened when she was eleven: during a normal Sunday church service, a white man entered their church and walked straight up to the pulpit, eyes locked on her reverend. The [Black] men of the church stood up, ready to take action if need be, but the man genuflected, “lowering his head to the ground with his hand placed over his heart,” after which he was escorted to the church office. Afterward, he told them he’d been distraught and as he walked past the church and heard the reverend preaching and the choir singing, he decided to come in and pay his respects. The interesting part is what Marcie Alvis Walker says after that part.

… one moment we were all going about our regular Sunday church services… then suddenly, our spirits were besieged because a white man entered our sacred routine, and we didn’t know if he was saint or demon. That day more than thirty years ago, our country’s pedigree of white supremacy, slavery, segregation, and genocide had swaggered into our house of worship, and we had no idea how to handle it—because we had no power to name it”.

Walker then describes all the naming, claiming, and labeling that we endure throughout our lives, to the point that we begin to sort ourselves, even into fictional houses like those of Hogwarts.

We spend our lives proving that we are worthy to be in the rooms that we enter. But only one qualifier should be required for us to enter and exit rooms: human. But this is not the world in which we live. Our world tattoos on us names, labels and classifications that can change the direction of where we choose to journey and the atmosphere of the rooms we choose to enter when we get there.

She is getting to the point, and asks why she still remembers that day in church and how it filled everyone there with so much fear.

Why did it have to feel so bad and wrong and highly suspect? Why couldn’t it have been just a human experience?

And then she describes what happened in 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, when Dylann Roof joined a Black congregation – he worshipped with them for forty-five minutes – and then committed an atrocity, a murder of the innocent.

The presence of one white man in a Black congregation has been and always will be questioned. It has always sounded the alarm for danger. It will always wake the sleeping history of terror in our hearts. And rightfully so.

I hadn’t heard the name Marcie Alvis Walker before I found this book, but I was excited when I read the synopsis. As a white woman who tries to be a good ally to Black people, especially Black women, I thought this would be an excellent book for me to read, especially since I haven’t yet started on my list of Antiracist Allyship Must-Reads (books like those found here: https://bookshop.org/lists/anti-racist-action? and that’s barely scratching the surface of hugely important, powerful books written by people of color that can help white people challenge our internalized anti-blackness and do the work to fight racism and white supremacy where we encounter it, which is more frequent and in more places than we would think before opening our eyes by reading these and similar books).

All that’s here is a story about the complexity of one human experience, my experience of being Black, woman, and holy.

I applaud you, Marcie Alvis Walker, for this excellent memoir, and I wish you many blessings.

"Everybody Come Alive" by Marcie Alvis Walker is a poignant and illuminating memoir, weaving lyrical essays that explore the author's coming-of-age journey. Raised in the seventies and eighties under the critical eye of Jim Crow matriarchs, Walker delves into the complexities of racial trauma, abandonment, and mental illness. Her nostalgic yet unflinching narrative invites readers to witness the beauty and terror of God, race, and gender's imprint on her life. In candid and tender prose, Walker challenges readers to embrace vulnerability, leaving an indelible mark on the exploration of identity, race, and womanhood. This debut is an unforgettable and beautifully written invitation to connect with the shared human experience.

Thanks to Convergent Books for the advanced reader copy to review via NetGalley!

My goodness, Marcie. How do we deserve such a treasure? This book was fabulous. Memoir in essays, traveling up and down the family tree. Just a really exceptionally well written book, and touching in all the best ways. Following Marcie on IG is an absolute must.

I liked it. It is as intimate as the summary suggests. I found myself with tears in my eyes, feeling unsettled and also calmed by the lyrical and personal narration of these essays. It's so very human! May have to reread to properly grasp it all.

Thank you, to NetGalley and Convergent Books for offering me with a digital arc of this book.

I've followed the author's Instagram account for a while now and I was very excited to read this debut. While I enjoyed the essays individually, I found it difficult to piece together a coherent narrative. I often found myself looking back to try to figure out when each essay was taking place in relation to the others. The author's insights on racism were very insightful and I enjoyed learning more about her life, but the format was problematic for me.

Such an intriguing memoir! The prose was almost lyrical and the authors vulnerability is completely evident and appreciated. I really enjoyed this book and will be recommending it to family and friends.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC: Walker writes beautifully --her memoir is not a linear recounting of her life but rather an exploration from multiple angles. As a Black child who was sent to live with her non-nurturing grandparents in an all white suburb by her mercurial, beloved and mentally ill mother, she explores her life--past and present. Walker utilizes her profound understanding of theology to illustrate her book. There are no easy answers and this powerful memoir resonated with me and there are so many profound truths and layers within her essays. A book that deserves wide readership and accolades.

Can lament ever be joyful? Can an invitation to dance be delivered through tears?
If so, then that's the mission of Everybody Come Alive. Marcie Alvis Walker remembers a Black childhood stained by rejection, abandonment, and disdain for her dark skin. Growing up in the 1970's, her story is entangled with Alex Haley's Roots, Mary Tyler Moore, and a blonde, blue-eyed Jesus she discovered in her all-Black Sunday school class.

It's this dissonance that Alvis Walker carries into adulthood, and then writes with vulnerability about her divorce, single motherhood, her mother's mental illness, and learning to live as an image bearer of a "diverse and multicolored God."

Many thanks to Convergent Books and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.

This is a stunning book, a reflection on Walker’s life growing up as a dark-skinned Black child, between her grandparents’ house in a majority white neighborhood and school, and her mother’s house in a majority Black neighborhood. She discusses her mom’s mental illness at length, and the impact it had on her and her siblings’ lives then and now. This is a searing, honest look at the impact of racism, colorism and classism on the lives of Black people in America, interwoven with her considerable knowledge of Christian theology and a broader look at the relationship between spirituality and harsh daily reality. This is an important story to read and to witness, and to use as a call to action in my own life to squash racism in myself and in my sphere of influence.

Marcie Alvis Walker has been one of my absolute favorite Instagram follows for many years now. Walker’s ability to quickly cut to the core of a deep and difficult truth, while writing about it the most poetic and gorgeous prose, continually blows me away, and this memoir captures that same feeling.

Everybody Come Alive is Walker’s story in particular, but it is also the story of discovering what it means to be Black, a woman, and a person who is holy, beloved, and fully alive in America today. This book is raw, honest, and vulnerable yet also joyful and hopeful. What a gift she has given the world by sharing her story so powerfully and generously. I’m so glad to have read it and hope you will, too.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me an advanced digital copy of this book for review.

This is a really powerful, insightful, honest, gorgeously written memoir. The author's experiences are sometimes beautiful, sometimes heartwrenching, and occasionally both, and she writes about her life from childhood to motherhood in lush detail. I have followed Marcie's writing online for a few years now, and it was wonderful to see her work in book format. Recommended for those looking for loving, unflinching stories about growing up Black, raising a biracial and queer child, and much more.

I found this to be such a wonderful way to tell a story. It is woven in such a creative way. It makes you feel like the author is talking directly to you, opening up in a very vulnerable and raw way. Highly recommend reading this book to get a glimpse of a beautiful life.

Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for free copy, and I am leaving this review voluntarily

I had the honor of reading an advance copy of this beautiful new book scheduled to release on May 30. Though I have followed Marcie for a while and expected it to be a great one, I was blown away by how gorgeous the writing is. It is textured, unique, and absolutely spellbinding! Marcie is an incredibly gifted storyteller who writes “…a story about the complexity of one human experience, my experience of being Black, woman, and holy.”
 
The book is divided into 3 parts: Black, Woman, and Holy. She shares stories from her childhood as the daughter of a mother who was in love with her Blackness but struggled with mental illness. She moved back and forth between her mother’s world and that of her grandparents, who helped raise her in a world that was much more immersed in whiteness. She also shares about her experience as a Black single mother.
 
It's difficult to know how to write about this book, other than to say that you have to experience it. Through captivating stories, Marcie weaves throughout the book threads of what it has meant to her to be Black, woman, and holy. I loved this book so much and felt honored to bear witness to her journey of becoming. What a gift.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a copy to review. An excellent memoir telling the experience of a Black woman living in America. Essays from childhood through adulthood, Walker paints an emotional picture of her life and experiences in school, with family family, in and out of relationships, what it means to feel beautiful, and spirituality.

An excellent memoir, in which author Walker describes her experiences as a Black girl and then woman, navigating majority white spaces, and the juxtaposition of her pro-Black mother and her assimilationist grandparents who she lived with. Throughout the book, Walker uses Christianity and the concept of "holiness" to frame her experiences; I'm not particularly religious myself but I did find this interesting, the exploration of Blackness and Christianity, especially in the context of white Christianity. I spread reading this book out over many months and it was nice to return to it to read it in chunks, but the essays do flow well together. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

‘Black’, ‘woman’, and ‘holy’: these would be the words I’d use to describe Marcie Alvis Walker’s memoir ‘Everybody Come Alive—and the effect of those words (also the titles of the book’s subsections) only grows stronger throughout the book. Walker uses the essay format to create a coherent narrative of her own life, forming intersections between her childhood and the overarching framework of being black, being a black woman, being a dark black woman, and being a dark black woman married to a white man. Through her prose, Marcie mesmerises the reader, her words coming alive so strongly in their minds that parts of the book often feel like the world of 1970s America is born right in front of their eyes.

As a woman of colour, I resonated with her notion that she is black and woman and holy—that the body of a person of colour (man, woman or gender non-conforming) can never be consumed into the normative structures of power. I adore how Walker uses the word ‘holy’ rather than ‘beautiful’ to describe bodies of colour—removing the aesthetic dimension to create an ethereal divinity to the body, filling it with wonderment about how it works to aid us every time. The pacing of her essays with real-life events that happened to black people during Jim Crow America frames her lived experiences in the broader framework of racism and how its subtle existence hinders upon the progress of black people all over the country.

Also, I adore how Marcie uses religion—more often than not a tool used to justify subjugation—to frame her existence in a narrative of power, using poetry to fill in the questions of her childhood, and of her own power. Finally, Walker ends the book with her child, Max, and how their existence—along with the presence of other marginalised bodies in a heteronormative society—is in itself a movement to change, a movement to be seen and heard, and a movement to be holy all over again.

Review by Staff Creative Keerthana A.

A beautifully written memoir. Growing up in the same time period as the author, I was blown away by her insight and wisdom.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the e-ARC.

A memoir that has a lot to say about certain life being in a different culture. A well delivered story that I would say both beautiful and touching.

4.0/5 stars.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

A really fascinating insight into the life and challenges of the author. The prose was beautiful, incredibly descriptive and the emotions felt amazingly translated into feelings for the reader. I really enjoyed this book, and loved the essay format of the title particularly. Well worth a read!