Thought-provoking and razor-sharp, Parker does it again with You Get What You Pay For. As a fan, I was so appreciative to see the work presented as essays. Loved it.

While these essays are interesting, I find myself much more engaged by Parker's poetry. I find the prose less compelling than her wonderful poems.

Today, my favorite essay is “A Bale of Cotton, For Example.” Parker weaves connections between Black Millennial memories like a NYT puzzle maker. In fact, with her experience, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. When you see lines take perfect space to the next, satisfaction is as if you’ve won. And yet, in this essay, Parker tries to convince us that she does not believe in things linear or facts when she keeps spittin ‘em.

As with any essay collection, some essays will resonate with a reader more than others. The ones that resonate for me, address pop culture and American racial issues. The ones that do not resonate are ones that are deeply personal in which the author shares details of her personal struggles with mental illness. The personal essays are more like diary entries and feel like the author was rambling.

The essays that deal with pop culture and racial inequalities, feel more structured and convey many points to the reader. The essay I enjoyed most was Everything is a Slave Ship. Parker does a brilliant comparison of Jay-Z’s Big Pimpin video to that of a slave ship in that essay. Since Parker is also a poet, many of her prose read like poetic lines.

Overall, I rate this collection 3.5 stars.

I was sent an advanced copy of this book from the publisher, One World via NetGalley.

Thanks Random House and Netgalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Now available.

There are no words to describe what a gift Morgan Parker's You Get What You Pay For is as a collection. Weaving the personal and political, Parker discusses how enslavement and colonization continue to impact race and social structure in the US to this very day. She grapples with the trauma and inheritance of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and the shortfalls of reparations. Some musings can get a little dense, but overall this book is a detailed and precise interrogation of what it means to be a Black woman in America.

4.5 stars. Thank you to Net Galley and Random House One World for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. These essays told an overall story of what it's like to be Black and female and American. It begins with a bit of history going back to slavery and plantations and bringing it back to the present of knowing she will always be judged first by her skin color. She talks about going to therapy and realizing that POC therapist would serve her better yet has difficulty breaking up with her white therapist. I found the last half of the book more powerful, starting with all the Black death and violence at the hands of the police which leads into a discussion of reparations on how money is not enough. How do you give people back their dignity and freedoms when we can't turn back time and change all the bias and prejudice that so many people carry around whether it's obvious or deep seeded. And how can one feel freedom when there are so many ways that society keeps you trapped and judged?

Five stars, I loved this book so much. Morgan Parker's essays really resonate. Recommend following this up with her interview on the Vibe Check podcast.

I love Parker's poetry, and her essays mine similar topics like loneliness, whiteness, and celebrity. She's got a really engaging voice in prose too.

Amid the calumnious pushback in the United States against so-called “critical race theory” (it’s not) in schools remains the single truth: you don’t learn the true history of the US in school. The same goes for Canada, where we learn about the enslavement of African people in the US, but we don’t learn about slavery in Canada or our own history of anti-Black racism following abolition. So I do my best to read and learn, especially from Black women. In You Get What You Pay For, Morgan Parker engages with the legacy of slavery and nearly four centuries of anti-Blackness on this continent. Her tone is brutally forthright, holding nothing back as she looks at how the shape of American society has influenced her life. In an era that has too long billed itself post-racial or colour-blind, Parker insists that, yes, you need to see her race in order to see the arc of her life so far. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Penguin Random House in exchange for a review.

This is an essay collection loosely masquerading as memoir and following a rough chronology of Parker’s life. She returns to a few regular motifs throughout: her next therapist, the slave ship as a metaphor for living under white supremacy in the US, the impossibility of survival for so many Black people as a result of police brutality. Many of the essays engage with seminal moments of the American zeitgeist in the past couple decades: the ascension of Serena and Venus Williams, Ye’s infamous remark about George W. Bush in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the trial of Bill Cosby.

Parker acknowledges the complexity of her subject while writing with an appealing simplicity. Some of her discussions of her therapists reminded me of It’s Always Been Ours, by Jessica Wilson. Both books were illuminating. We white women often fail to consider race as a factor in our professional interactions, whether it’s therapy, treatment for eating disorders, or in my case, teaching. Which is not to say that race is the only factor in finding a good fit with a professional. But as Parker makes clear in this book, it wasn’t until she found a Black female therapist that she was finally able to connect in a way that was authentic and useful for her. Her white therapists prior lacked the experience and ancestors required to see all of Parker.

That’s what we are talking about here. Seeing. Seeing the weight of intergenerational trauma. Seeing resilience not as a buzzword (“oh, you are so strong”) but as a rebellion against being put into a box. Seeing and understanding that racism isn’t simply, “Oh, people are mean to you because of your skin colour?”—racism is a kaleoidoscope of Rubik’s cubes of dominoes that fall every single day. It’s a behemoth, visible and invisible at the same time.

You Get What You Pay For is dolorous at times. It lacks the rah-rah inspirational tone that we have come to demand from racialized writers. This is my first time reading anything by Parker that I can recall, so my point of comparison is to Roxane Gay, who is likewise unapologetic in her take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards her opinions. This is something we unthinkingly praise in white writers but often see as too adversarial or cynical in Black writers. While Parker has obviously met with a fair amount of success, she opens up and discusses how that hasn’t always translated into better mental health. This reminds me of Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey’s Harvard Business Review article, “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome”. Before I read that article, I probably would have labelled Parker’s description of her experiences as imposter syndrome. Now I know better. Now I know that the driving force is systemic, misogynoir.

At the same time, I think it’s important to emphasize that this collection is not hopeless. It’s just honest. You won’t exit it with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and you aren’t meant to. Now, that might not be what you want on your reading schedule right now—and I don’t blame you; I won’t pretend that I revelled in reading this. At the same time, I did fly through it, for as bleak as this book feels sometimes, Parker’s writing is also compelling.

Intergenerational trauma is no joke. White supremacy is alive and well in the US, as well as here in Canada. You Get What You Pay For brings a powerful voice to the conversation. Above all else, Parker insists that survival is not enough. She wants her life to be hers, as she should. Freedom on paper is not freedom in reality. Not yet.

You Get What You Pay For is a collection of essays about being black, and especially being a black woman, in America. The essays cover everything from slave ships to Bill Cosby.

I will start by saying that because I’m not a black American you shouldn’t prioritize my opinion when deciding whether or not to read this book. You should definitely go and read some reviews from some black women. But I’ll tell you that when I first started this book I thought it would be a 5 star read. I absolutely love the author’s voice and I really connected with the content of the essays. But after a while the essays began to feel repetitive. In spite of the fact that they focus on lots of different topics in the end the message about oppression in America seemed to be delivered in the same way. The Everything is a Slave Ship essays were my least favorite essays because I strongly disagree with them. Self Help was my favorite essay because I’ve never seen or heard a woman older than her early 20s talk about the experience of being single for her entire life.

How do you self-actualize when the self has been decided for you pre-birth? Morgan Parker's debut essay collection blends personal essay and cultural criticism to explore this and other questions about Black American identity in the wake of oppression, slavery, and police brutality. Mental health is inextricably linked to the racist legacy of america, and Parker discusses this connection across these essays.
Performance and the weight of words are central to this collection, as well as the intersection of humor and pain. What we spend words on, what we perform matters and affects the self. How successful we are in performing affects the self, too.
On a more personal (brown bipolar) note, I wish I had this book in college when I began consciously decolonizing my mindset. Imagine if I had the confidence to stop going to white therapists sooner than last year.
I can't wait to read what's next from Morgan Parker. For new readers, I definitely recommend her poetry collections and YA novel as well.

I was surprised by how short it is—just over 200 pages—but that was a good thing. The collection never overstays its welcome, and is tight and coherent even though many of the essays were previously published. The essays are edited and sequenced very well. As in her poetry, Parker approaches difficult topics with wit and sarcasm. Her sense of humor isn’t just meant to get laughs—it’s a coping mechanism, as she points out in “We Got Jokes,” an essay about Black humor.

There are many themes that run throughout the collection. Parker spends a lot of time thinking about mental health—she talks about her time in therapy, and suggests free therapy as reparations. The afterlives of slavery and the motif of the slave ship are everywhere (including in the discussions of therapy). Parker is in conversation with Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, and M. NourbeSe Philip, both implicitly and explicitly. Not all of the ideas in this collection are new, but that is precisely Parker’s point. She writes from her particular point of view, but so many of the things that weigh on her are old and not unique to her.

I liked all of the essays, but one standout to me was “Self Help,” in which Parker discusses never having been in a relationship. Parker writes about this topic in a way I don’t see often. She is uncomfortable with it, but not in a strange patriarchal way, and she doesn’t impose her discomfort onto others like her. She also addresses how being single in her thirties feels harder in the age of apps, since people don’t really set each other up anymore.

What a fantastic collection. I've been a fan of Parker's work, both poetry and other writing, and having all of these essays (some I had already seen, with plenty new in the mix) in one place was such a treat. These are insightful pieces - on being in therapy, on being a black woman in America the last 5 years, on reparations and so many other topics. There's a great flow to the collection, and I found myself constantly wanting to read just one more until I had fully run out. A great showcase of talent - I hope we get more.

This is an entertaining and insightful collection of introspective essays from a young and talented author. She bares and shares her insecurities and vulnerabilities and how she shed self-hatred via therapy and counseling to navigate as a young black woman in a world that is not always welcoming to her gender or race. She talks about dating and loneliness and the challenges of being single and successful. She relates to the subtle and overt attacks on Black Womanhood even when excellence is on display via Serena Wiliams, Beyonce’ and all in between – including the regular girls. The author is considerably younger than I am, and I loved reading her views on events that rocked the culture and news cycles: when Kayne’s declaration regarding George Bush not caring about Black People, thoughts on Bill Cosby and other sexual predators, etc and how she analyzed the impact and relevance to her life, on pop culture, and society as a whole. I enjoyed reading her perspective and observations – very insightful and entertaining.

Thanks to NetGalley and One Word for the opportunity to review.

Morgan Parker's "You Get What You Pay For" is a remarkable collection that offers a candid exploration of being Black and a woman in America. Parker's writing is powerful and thought-provoking, tackling themes of race, discrimination, and mental health with searing honesty. Through poignant essays, she invites readers to confront uncomfortable truths and challenge societal norms. This book is an essential addition to contemporary literature, deserving of a five-star rating.

I was really impressed by this collection. I appreciate Parker's humor and her ability to see the world in ways that I can't always articulate. Some of the essays don't feel like they fit in the collection per se, but most of the essays are strong on their own merits. I would've liked more of her pop cultural criticisms because she has such a sharp perspective on Black culture. Overall a really strong book.

I've been waiting so long for this one to hit audio, and DAMN, it hit. I love Morgan Parker and everything she creates, so when I saw this baby pop up on PRH Audio, I was in for a treat. I am so thankful to PRH Audio, One World Books, and the ever-lovely Morgan Parker for granting me advanced listener access to this one before it hits shelves on March 12, 2024.

Parker is a linguist and her writing pours like hot honey, as she tells it how it is and you just can't get enough. I am so blessed to be able to read this and rant about it during Black History Month, for she touches on themes of race and discrimination in this skewed nation we live in. From mass shootings to instances of police brutality and more historic settings of segregation and hate, Parker covers it all in this upcoming collection of essays and prose titled, You Get What You Pay For -- which is really the moral of living in the states, in this economy, under this presidency, in this public health crises, for people of color, and I hate it. This should be required reading... I'm saying it now.

From time to time, I see the description of a book of essays and think that I’ll love them only to pick up the book and remember that I don’t really like essays at all. Some interesting ideas here, but the form just is not my bag.

"This is what I am trying to say. I am writing to make evidence of myself." I appreciated Morgan Parker's keen observations, intellect, and fresh takes above all. I appreciated the references she wove in, from Fanon to Y2K to 9/11. Her's is a subversive voice, a Black Feminist millennial critiquing culture and remaking our world.

Morgan Parker talks about her depression and the brutal days of slavery which carries on through to the present. She writes about a number of subjects including her premature birth, growing up with white TV shows, Bill Crosby’s trial, black comedians, college in NYC, plantations and slave ships.

She asked her parents at 15 years old to see a therapist when she had thoughts of suicide. Since then, she has seen a number of psychiatrists. Now in her 30s, she takes antidepressants to battle the fear and anger that is constant.

This book is not an easy read for those who are white and pushed in a category of the slave owners years ago. I get it. It’s painful to read the news stories of Black people that are killed in the present without cause. It’s distressing and wrong when Blacks are emotionally and physically threatened, sabotaged and targeted in this country.

She wants it to stop. She has put all of her personal thoughts in these essays in hopes that it will bring change and enlighten others to see the pain that Black people feel. It’s been said that writing is a way of healing. Let’s hope this helps her and others to see the harsh truth.

My thanks to One World and NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy of this advanced book with an expected release date of March 12, 2024.