The Right Kind of White: A Memoir

by Garrett Bucks

A revelatory memoir seeking to reimagine white identity through a lens of compassion, curiosity, and nuance as Garett Bucks documents his various attempts and failures to define himself in relation to other white people—as either heroes to admire or villains to reject—exploring the limits of those definitions and the journey to create a more expansive language for his white identity.

In our current political moment where white Americans are being asked to reevaluate how American history, policy, and mass media informs the way they see Black and Brown Americans, Garett Bucks’s memoir specifically models what the challenge looks like for a white American man to reevaluate what being white can mean if it’s centered on an affirmative sense of cultural identity that isn’t dependent on exclusion.

The Right Kind of White is a groundbreaking memoir that offers an open and honest discussion of race and how understanding one’s own white identity can create the racial accountability needed in much of the nation’s discourse.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Race, Audiobook, Social Justice, Biography Memoir

240 pages, Hardcover

Published March 19, 2024

About the author

Garrett Bucks is the founder of The Barnraisers Project, which has trained nearly one thousand participants to organize majority-white communities for racial and social justice. He is also the author the popular newsletter The White Pages. Originally from Montana, he lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife and two children. The Right Kind of White is his first book.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m very critical of memoirs because I think they can be hard to write successfully. Sometimes the writer focuses too much on one aspect of their life or maybe it’s not told in a cohesive way. But my biggest pet peeve about memoirs is that not everyone’s life warrants one. This is where I landed with “The Right Kind of White” by Garrett Bucks. I’m just not sure why this was considered enough content for a full book.

Bucks is a white male who decided to write about his experiences, including his privilege. However, this book didn’t really examine too much of that perspective or its implications throughout history. Rather, Bucks focuses more on autobiographical details. Maybe this is just a case of my expectations being really different from the actual book. What I wanted was a white man examining how his privilege has impacted his life and the world around him – what I got was details about Bucks going from job to job and basically failing upward.

At the end of the day, I need some drama in my memoirs, or at least some general conflicts. Bucks doesn’t really have any. His major childhood trauma was moving to another state for a few years, until his family moved back to the Midwest. He has a health scare as an adult, but SPOILER it just turns out to be sleep apnea. Race is only discussed somewhat fleetingly, like when he teaches with Teach for America at a school on a reservation. The Indigenous students learn to trust him, but then he leaves after a year anyway (not sure what the exact lesson that was supposed to be learned here). He wants to get involved after a string of violent, racially-charged police incidents take place, but then somehow doesn’t do anything even after mentioning that he feels guilty as a white man and wants to take action.

The reviews on Goodreads so far are pretty positive, so it’s quite possible that I just didn’t get the point of this book. I would probably have gained some appreciation in a more streamlined essay format, but as a full-length book, I just found myself wondering if the biggest example of white, male privilege is that he was able to publish a book solely based on his average life story.

2 stars (can’t give just 1 because he did spend time writing this, and maybe I just didn’t get it)

*Free copy provided by Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review*

[Ginnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly can’t think of other books like this. Yes, this book is about what it means to be White in America and what to do about it; but it’s also not what you’re now picturing. this book is like having a beer with a nerdy friend. it’s thoughtful, smart, relatable, and funny. a quick but meaningful read.

[Clifton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book's title and description (e.g. a memoir that reflects on what it means to be White in modern America) likely raise many expectations, some intriguing and some intimidating. But Garrett Bucks is far less interested in writing a treatise on race than he is in sharing his story vulnerably and authentically so that other White people can do the same. He says it right in his intro: "while I truly believe that there's a collective narrative at play here, I couldn’t honestly tell that story without first interrogating my own." In some ways, that is an even loftier task. It is easier to voice answers for others than to honestly sit with questions for yourself. But if you know Garrett from work or Barnraisers or someplace else (and I'm grateful to say I do) it will not surprise you that he is more interested in taking the harder more reflective path and then inviting all of us to walk alongside him. So this book probably isn't what people will expect...and I hope people read it anyway. And then I hope they do the hard work of building communities where we can tell our own stories and, more importantly, listen to others' stories too.

[Kristin DeMarr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a fantastic read! My expectation going in was that Bucks was going to tell the reader how to be the right kind of white - how to become an ally against racism. Instead, Bucks takes us on a journey of examining our own identities in such an honest and vulnerable way. The vulnerability, truth, transparency, and reflection are what make this such a fantastic read! This is an important book that the world needs more than ever right now. It asks the hard questions that are required to do the necessary work.

[Erica Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I follow Garrett’s Substack and have liked that, and the promise of this book had me convinced I’d love it, but it was so so so much arbitrary life stuff and not nearly enough focus or dissection or discovery of the title subject. It felt like an afterthought of just telling the story of an average white guy’s darn good life who’s learning some things along the way. Bummed me out, I wanted so much more, that I think he could actually give, from this book.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

It takes courage to write an unflinching memoir like this, but I'm glad Bucks did as his story offers much to reflect on as we examine our own lives. This book is a must read for anyone who identifies as liberal and White. Bucks asks us to consider how we perform our commitment to antiracism (and by extension, other social goods) in part not because they are a moral good but because we want so badly to be seen as "right." I'll use this book as a mirror to explore my own experience for months to come.

[Ashley Dobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I so admire and applaud the author's rigorous honesty in this book. His confessions made me think a lot about my own reasonings and challenged me to be more truthful about my intentions and desires when I show up as an ally, when I champion progressive causes, and when I decide to speak out. As someone with a chronic illness, hearing about how his own health struggles influenced how he shows up also felt really relatable. His writing style is extremely approachable and enjoyable to read. For me, the real standout section didn't come until nearly the end when he talked about skipping the step of building community. This is what I know I will carry with me for the long-term.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a delight. Garrett Bucks is an engaging author who tells stories with humility, humor and empathy. He has a relatable style, as like the author there are stories from our past that we all enjoy sharing. But Bucks' gift for interrogating himself shows a gift for reflection and self-awareness that I don't think most people reach.

Maybe sometimes we truly are, and maybe often we're not. But when we are truly being our own harshest critic, that can be a pretty lonely place. And the author doesn't shy away from sharing how vulnerable that feels.

Racial and social justice may not be what drives you. But all of us can relate to replaying the day's events over in our heads and wondering how we might have been just a bit better. A bit kinder, a bit better of a friend or neighbor, a better parent. And while striving to do right, we've had things go well, except when they haven't. And sometimes, the clarity of hindsight leads us to realize that what we thought most important leaves us feeling like we were shy of the mark. The way Bucks questions his assumptions and efforts at being the right kind of White leaves him wanting to be a more intentional community member. And it leaves me cheering for a man who writes so humbly but blends his vulnerable introspection with hope and humor.

Highly recommend.

[Nora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garrett's substack is great but I think this memoir needed a different balance between life context and the actual ideas/takeaways he seemed to want to get across/seems to care about in general. Or maybe I was just expecting it to be a different book than it was

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading Garrett's newsletter for about 4 years now, which was what initially got me to preorder this book. Since I've been such a loyal reader of Garrett's, I don't feel like there was a ton of new information here, although having more context for his background was very helpful in understanding his perspective! On the flip side, I don't entirely know how well this book would work for people who are not familiar with his work (although I'm not usually a memoir person, so maybe fans of memoirs will enjoy this).

I also wanted a bit more about Garrett's ideas on community building and unpacking the various identities that are encompassed by "Whiteness" (and particularly how that relates to narratives of rural White people), as I feel like both of those are touched on in a very surface level way.

All this being said, though, I do think Garrett has a lot of interesting ideas and will definitely continue to support his newsletter and his work!

[Patricia McMillen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I should have known better than to take the advice of Liz Lenz, whose self-satisfied blog Men Yell at Me I followed for a year or so until I got fed up with her one-note “progressive” advocacy (and cocktail recipes, yikes). But I bit, and read every word of this book, which reads like a (bad) first draft and reminds me that even well-established publishers these days are less literary editors and more cheerleaders for whatever will make them the most money.
Ok I also was curious to follow up on Bucks’ adoption of the capital W(hite) usage—something I’ve thought about doing as a non BIPOC person/writer myself. However I don’t quite see the through line or how adding a capital letter will change the fact that “my” people continue to hold most of the wealth/power in the US to the demonstrated detriment of most BIPOC folks in the US. It, also, has an unfortunate echo with the usage of European colonialists in Africa in the past two centuries.
There are, in short, much better books about race in the US. Read them first, and with any luck you won’t have time for this one.

[Dawn Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Right Kind of White by Garrett Bucks

240 Pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: March 19, 2024

Nonfiction (Adult), Biographies, Memoirs, History

Garrett discusses his childhood and his Methodist upbringing. He talks about teaching in New Mexico, the possibility of becoming a minister, and the Quakers. He strived to be the best person he could be, but at times wished he was better. He explains his mysterious illness and how it affected his life and relationships.

This memoir has a steady pace and is written in the first-person point of view. The author did a good job chronicling historic events and how they affected his perspectives on life. I enjoyed this author’s writing style and would definitely read more by him in the future.

[Laura Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Garrett. Love his humorous and vulnerable writing. I related to a lot of this book and will turn toward people who believe different things than me.

[Janalyn, the blind reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

When reading this book by Gareth Bucks about his long ancestry of liberalism and non-racist relatives and how he with the exception of his family and community members shunned all other white people because he assumed they were all racist. He was also very aware of his white privilege it would make his decisions based on not wanting to take advantage of that privilege with the exception of everything from his medical care education in his eventual marriage. I kept thinking about the autobiography I read on wild Bill Hickok and how his father was an abolitionist but not the kind that wanted to save Black people from slavery he was from Missouri and didn’t want slaves in his state because he didn’t want to live near them. He writes about his animosity and distain toward other white people because he assumed they were all racist while he and his girlfriend moved to Sweden on a Fulbright scholarship they say with age comes wisdom and that certainly happen for the author only it started during his mysterious illness. He also talks about his lifelong search for a white hero and his need to make minority approved decisions When I was in college I never thought my choice of heroes could only be the same color as myself I did enjoy the book and found it quite entertaining and thought the author has a great talent for writing but I do think his revelation about why people almost seem like an afterthought I just found it so coincidental that he comes from a long line of non-racist people who grew up in North Dakota in other mainly white states.I did want to stop here and say I thought much like the author did growing up but I actually grew up around a multi race environment. I knew my family weren’t racist because on Thanksgiving when my grandmother saw black kids picking on another black guy she went out and preach the word of God to them and then invited them into our home to share Thanksgiving dinner and while I sat eating dinner with our new friends One of whom would grow up become a nurse and tend to my grandmother when she could no longer tend to herself not because it was his job but because he loved my grandmother but as we sat there I was so scared the people in my family who I knew said the N-word would say it but no one did. Everyone was welcoming and nice and it wouldn’t be until years later that I realize most of what they said was because it was what they grew up with and not because I felt any animosity towards other races because they also had disparaging names for white men they knew and didn’t like. That doesn’t make it right and I would be lying if I sat here and said no one in my Southern family was a real racist because I have lots of people in my family some love Trump some love BLM and some… Yes love everyone. Like I often do I am making this review about me and not the author in his book which was a good one I do want to say I hope the author doesn’t teach his children to go around and make decisions based on what others approve that he raises them to make the right decision because they know it to be right. my only advice to the author and any one else that feels the way he does just throw your rock in the pond and don’t worry about the ripples because if it is the right rock it will make the right changes. Just be good to everybody whether they are racist or not because you never know who may need a smile from you that day. America will never be the Kumbaya nation someone it to be they got those who hate the military yet without the military we would be speaking a different language and not living a totally different kind of life and that includes our racist ancestors who fought wars. I do not like racism and feel bad for those who feel the need to hate people they don’t even know so I decided I would make a difference by raising my children hopefully to love everyone and if they don’t love someone I hope they have a good reason not because it’s how they look or where they come from. I’m going to stop here because instead of telling you what a great book this is I am just patting myself on the back for being the perfect non-racist American and it is making even me nauseated. This is a great book and I did enjoy it some of it my opinion is still out on but he is a talented writer in his stories I found were most interesting I just thought maybe the man protest too much. This is to the author if you read this your uncle Ken‘s sad demise is in a book called Deaths in Yellowstone and I am almost positive they mentioned your mother as well. I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

[Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author, who is White (he capitalizes it) and from Montana, grew up with an awareness of racism and a desire to be the sort of white person who consistently does the right thing to oppose racism. But what is the right thing to do? For some people, this would become a discourse of "non-racist" versus "anti-racist," or "moderate" versus "progressive," but that vocabulary isn't at play in this memoir. To Bucks, as a young man, the question never presented itself in quite those terms because he always felt (from a very young age) that being a "good" white person was tied to the childlike desire for approval. He wanted to be a good kid, then a good adult — and the idea of goodness was always linked to how he could show up as a good white man, especially in the perception of people of color, perceptions he of course could not control or verify.

I think he was struggling with the trope of the "ally who wants a cookie," though he doesn't use that term. The desire for a cookie is a childlike desire. When this desire has to do with race, it's inculcated by whiteness. He was aware of (and embarrassed by) other white people who were very performative or transparent about their desire for a cookie when they opened their mouths to make specific comments in specific situations, but his awareness of other white people's bumbling ignorance was insufficient to help him clarify his own intentions or become more effective in his own work.

The "cookie trope" is sort of an unfair reduction. What's discussed here is more complex than that. Wanting to be good in a long-term, dedicated way — rather than just seeking a one-off back-pat — is a noble desire. Still, when one is motivated to be a Person who is Virtuous, the pursuit of virtue is fundamentally the pursuit of saintliness, purity, and deservingness, which would indeed be an attempt to Permanently Deserve Cookies (regardless of whether any cookies were ever delivered or whether one refrained from pressuring others to cough them up).

As a kid, Bucks wanted to be President of the United States. As a college student, he wanted to be a Methodist preacher — until a feminist professor hinted that if Christianity was always patriarchal then perhaps Jesus isn't God after all, so you have to pick a side between feminism and the Bible, which was a flashpoint of clarity for him. He was a public school teacher for a while. Then he got a Fulbright Fellowship. He describes a typical process of career discernment but specifically interrogates the self-centered desire for a cookie that can underlie all this, a desire that is never, ever going to make sense or go anywhere on its own. You have to work through community, he concludes; no one cares if you're "right." Community is probably what you really seek.

Hence he founded the Barnraisers Project, which seeks to "move every majority-white community...towards a new reality where we’re pulling our weight in multiracial coalitions for justice," with less "hashtagging and yard-signing" and more "thoughtful, committed organizing." Barnraisers isn't discussed in detail in this memoir; this memoir is its origin story. The memoir will appeal to people who are curious about specific ways in which some white people are drawn to organizing for racial justice, especially if they've had to sort through their own perspectives and points of confusion on a path that resembles the one Bucks took.

[Brittany]

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

Thank you to #SimonBookBuddies Simon and Schuster for the finished copy. I'm writing this review of my own volition.

I think white people really tend to listen to and take other white people more seriously, so if you're a white person and/or benefit from white privilege, I highly recommend you read this.

GB also notes that he is not the first to discuss this, and points folks to reading works by people of color, especially James Baldwin or Isabel Wilkerson (he also notes Robin Di Angelo, which like .... Robin is another white person so ...... sure, fine, read her work, but don't let your education stop there; start reading antiracist and intersectional literature from disabled, queer, and/or people of color too). He also does note works like Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, which you should read if you haven't already. This is becoming a foundational primer on antiracist lit <3

I appreciated this book because of GB's honesty, vulnerability, and frankness in reflecting on making decisions to ensure he "looked like a good white person". He talks about performing allyship, especially when compared to other white people, and ensuring he was the "right kind of white" as the title suggests. He is incredibly brave in admitting that he mostly cared about optics, about how he was seen, and the dopamine rush from the online validation he received whenever he wrote the "right things" online as far as performing activism and allyship. Look, more people need to interrogate their decisions and thought-processes the way GB does, because they'll likely find that they were acting in fear of being deemed a "bad white person."

Overall, I think since white people listen to other white people, all white people should read this, and investigate their current motivations whenever they are posting in solidarity, whenever they are called in, and whenever they are in dialogue with a nonwhite or mixed race person.

Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism
Minor: Religious bigotry, Medical content, Sexism, Police brutality, Xenophobia, and Racism

[Amanda books_ergo_sum · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a four star memoire, but I actually 10/10 recommend it. If that makes sense.

Because I can't stop thinking about its topic, namely:
✨ The way a certain (progressive, empathetic, university educated) type of White person's commitment to being "the right kind of White"...
A) leads inescapably to toxic White Saviourism in advocacy for marginalized people, and
B) causes them to turn their back on other struggling groups-just because they're also White (but poor, less educated, possibly bigoted).

It reminded me of a quote from a book (Too Late to Awaken by Zizek) | read earlier that also stuck with me, of an Australian Aboriginal woman saying to a
"rich white compassionate liberal":
✨ "If you have come here to help me, then don't waste your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then come, let us work together."

What made this memoire so good was how earnest and intimate it was. What made it so important was its topic: how a White person who wants to make the world a better place can actually make the world worse—but not the way you'd expect.

I just wish this book had drawn a sharper conclusion.
Because I think everything it needed was already there.

Garrett Bucks did all the right things. He was so committed to progressive activism that he became a Quaker, studied intersectional feminism at university, and worked full time in various activism organizations. But he was too aware of his white cis male privilege-and White Saviourism crept into his work despite his best efforts. And, he was too aware of his small town midwestern upbringing-and he stopped caring about certain people's struggles despite his commitment to compassion.

The events that turned this all around (BLM movement misadventures, getting a debilitating chronic illness, recognizing the seed company logo on a hat of a Trump rally supporter) were really interesting. I just wanted a firmer conclusion. Because I actually think he's more correct than he believes.

[Love Jonson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciated Bucks' framing of this memoir as a singular story that hopefully inspires people to interrogate (and share) their own stories of being racialized as white. I've done a lot of reflecting on this myself, having grown up in a deeply-held Greek-American cultural community AND in a standard American suburb as a white person. Bucks' story is very different than mine—both on the "right" part and the "white" part, as I was raised with neither of those aspirations—but we arrived at the same place of trying to do racial justice work because we want/need community. For him, it seems like he never had it as a long-racialized-as-white person; for me, it felt like I lost it when I left the Greek-American community I grew up in. Maybe we all just need community in the end.

Also! Ever here to make more honest the pedestaled image of Thomas Jefferson, I learned from this book that TJ created the concept of "white trash," or "waste people" as he called poor white people whose poverty and lack of "success" undermined his theory of white supremacy. He sent them to their own plots of land that he "bought" in the Louisiana Purchase so they could either succeed with this massive "gift" of stolen land or fail out of view of his fellow elite whites. So, the plan was Manifest Destiny as poverty alleviation for poor white people + eliminating threats to the theory of white supremacy. This reminds me of how the original European colonizers to this land were largely not elite whites but poor people who the elites had displaced from their land, disconnecting them from their subsistence-based, community-owned, small-scale production and effectively dumping them into cities with terrible conditions, all in service to capitalist production of agricultural products for export.

[James Steichen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an open and heartfelt book that helped me think more deeply about how I navigate the world as a White person. Bucks uses his own life as a way to illustrate how many White liberals seems always to be striving to prove how they are a “good” White person (and simultaneously distancing themselves from “bad” White people) at the expense of making meaningful connections that might have the capacity to create community and effect positive change.

Bucks talks about his family’s history, his childhood and education, moving from Montana to the east coast and back and then attending a very progressive liberal arts college. He subsequently taught for Teach for America and then became part of that organization’s leadership, and he reflects openly and honestly on the complex feelings he has about that work and how he went about it. The final chapters talk about his and his family’s experiences in the run up to the 2016 election and the subsequent periods of protest and racial reckoning.

It’s hard to describe this book because there are not many like it. But if you are a liberal White person looking to reflect about your place in American society and examine unspoken assumptions about how you live your life you will probably get a lot out of this book.

[Carly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir offers a rare combination of honesty, wit, unmerciful vulnerability, and heart as Garrett Bucks reckons with his whiteness, male-ness, and desire to not only be a “good white person” in America but also be NOTICED as a “good white person.”
As he reflects on his journey to find community and purpose from childhood to present, he takes the reader through a series of events in his life that examine the relationships between ourselves and our lineage, ourselves and our communities, and who we are vs. who we truly want to be in the world. Garrett’s unwavering introspection delves into the missteps and sacrifices that are made when the hunger for doing the right thing (as well as recognition for doing the right thing) thwarts our best intentions, and guides the reader through a coming-of-age journey - one of self discovery, course correction, and belonging.

The Right Kind of White is relatable in the most surprising ways, but at the same time, it's a truly unique story - one that I highly recommend!

[Antonia Malchik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading the author's newsletter for a few years, so thought I would be reading a lot of the same material in his book. What surprised me about it was Bucks's courage in examining his own need to be seen as the "right kind" of White person, and how hard the book made me think about the ways in which many people, including myself, think and behave similarly without being aware of it. It's so easy to say, "I'm different; I'm better," and point fingers at people we see as the real problem, without being honest with ourselves about how our doing so might be contributing to a broader spectrum of problems.

Another review mentioned that the book ends right when it's starting to say interesting things about community, which I felt a bit, too, and hope Bucks is thinking about another book going into the Barnraisers Project and the kind of work people are doing in all kinds of communities. Maybe a book providing a platform for those place-based, community-specific stories.

[Jessica Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted a book that gave me a playbook on how to be "the right kind of white". That's not what I got. In hindsight, it's also not what I need.

The author tells the story of his own understanding of his whiteness, including all the mistakes he made along the way. I found inspiration in his error and in his vulnerability to share it. Perhaps most inspiring was the call this book made not to post about the new, hot "social justice" read I'd just finished or hit the ground to start organizing Right Now, but to instead sit with the uncertainty of our identities as white people. I closed the book thinking, "What is my story of being the right kind of white?", and knowing this is a question not to contemplate for a few minutes or days, but for a lifetime.

I'm incredibly grateful for this book. Thank you.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garrett’s book is refreshingly honest, vulnerable, and full of the rich and messy stuff of being human. I am grateful to read his story and find in his words the very beginnings of the ideas that have been stirring in my own head -that when it comes to racism in America, no one can do this alone and the place to start is from is loving acceptance of ourselves that can in turn transform the folks we love around us. Our imperfections and faults when brought out into the light give ourselves and others permission to look and learn and grow and change the story. It’s simple and radical at the same time, a poignant antidote to the us v them political culture that rules our times. I feel not alone and like the work to be done is possible.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected that this book would begin with the story of a white, liberal professor who showed up at some marches after Ferguson. Instead, what I read was a story of a human and a teacher who has the courage to speak about the whiteness that so enveloped him that he couldn't see how dangerous his desire for goodness was. Bucks never hides what he learns along the way, and thankfully doesn't give us the ten right things to do for our own lives. Instead, he carefully interrogates himself and the systemic systems he's immersed in, as well as his family history, so we might discover where to look for ourselves.

[Tate · Rating 1 out of 5]

So Bucks admits to being a non-profit philanthropist entrepreneur, who has bounced around trying to make various racial Justice projects targeting changing the behavior of White folk as a business model. Now had discovered through his own experiences and introspection the way to make community work.

The whole book is about repeated self “discoveries” and more or less frustrated career ambitions in the non-profit sector. Ending on a the latest self discovery and renewed ambition in the same sector. Using his own story and self-reflections to always find a way to spin his latest product.

This is self-promotion masked as insight. A Hillbilly Eulogy for progressives.

[Briana Bendlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not the kind of book I thought it would be. However, the acknowledgment of privilege that Bucks mentions from growing up white in America makes it worth it. Having grown up with a completely different view of life, this allowed me to see the world through someone else's point of view. That was all it did though. I am happy that someone acknowledged those privileges that are allotted to them, I just wish more discussion of what to do next with that privilege would have happened.

Thank you Simon & Schuster for the e-copy

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 stars (audiobook),

I have a tough time giving memoirs bad reviews as I really enjoy reading different people’s perspectives. However, not everyone needs to write a book about their life. I was definitely not the target audience for this book but hopefully someone somewhere can use this book to reflect on their own self-righteousness.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the advance reader copy. This is my honest review.

[Trish Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

We hope we’re the right kind. Yet sometimes we strive and do what we think checks the boxes. Garrett Bucks doesn’t give you a checklist or a how-to manual. He offers the reader something more useful, the option to think differently about who we are and how we can better connect with others and have honest conversations with compassion and without judgment.

[Karen Pence · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an engrossing, beautifully written book that quite deliberately doesn’t have all the answers. Instead, through a series of insightful, vulnerable and at times downright funny stories, Garrett Bucks pulls back the “layers of the onion “ to reveal how he has come to understand his own racial identity and invites us along on this crucial, poignant, and thought-provoking journey.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very relatable

Not sure whether to applaud or laugh

He describes the contortions many white people go through to prove they are “one of the good ones”

And the book tries to be about swearing off that and growing

Yet it could easily be argued that the book is just more of the same

Would have liked more about his thoughts on community. It felt like it ended a bit abruptly