After Jon Stewart left the Daily Show I wasn't all that interested in watching it. But after catching clips of it a few times I began to appreciate Trevor Noah more and more. I decided to read this book after reading Bill Gates's review of it. The book is about Noah's childhood in apartheid-era South Africa, the title comes from the fact that since his father was white and his mother was not his conception was technically illegal at the time it occurred.

I was shocked by just the state of things in South Africa at the time. I was still young when apartheid ended, so I just never really understood just how bad things where. Nevertheless Noah managed to make it through everything with his sense of humor and his intellect intact, in large part due to the influence of his mother. The book is at times amusing and at times poignant. There were a number of times when I had to read passages from the book to my wife.

I read this because I needed a break from Robert Caro's biographies of LBJ, and the book provided a short but needed respite from that. It's not a great piece of literature by any means, but it wasn't intended to be. I would definitely recommend it.

Labels: books