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Abandoned by Booklikes

Government drone by day and book lover and geek girl by night!

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Lack of Cohesive Structure Causes Memoir to Lack Depth

The Last Black Unicorn - Tiffany Haddish

Well. I do love Tiffany Haddish. I have been so happy to see how popular she has gotten and wish her nothing but success. That said, this memoir was lacking in a lot of ways for me. Parts of it were funny and parts just made me want to find her and give her a hug. This entire memoir is raw. It is also real and you are going to read about a lot of things that may make you cringe and wonder how in the world did Haddish even get through the things she did. I think that the narrative style is ultimately what hurt this book and caused me to just give it 3 stars.

 

"The Last Black Unicorn" by Haddish goes into her childhood, her first and second marriage (to the same man), her relationships, and how she started to do comedy. Haddish's childhood sounds like the stuff of nightmares at times. She's upfront about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, how her father was absent, and how awful foster care was for her in the state of California. You can see early on why Haddish tried to make those around her laugh. It was a way of being seen by others and being noticed was better than being ignored.

 

The book's style jumps around a lot which I know a lot of readers won't be thrilled with. The book goes back and forth across the same periods of time, but then Haddish will jump back in order to tell another story. I think the biggest thing I realize is that this whole memoir just felt like a stream of consciousness memoir. I liken it to going out for drinks with a friend and you are just sitting around telling each other crazy stories over wine. 

 

There are some highlights in here though. We have Haddish recapping the infamous Groupon story (go check it out on Youtube, you will thank me) and her going into what happened when she has met famous comedians like Kevin Hart and other celebrities like Mary J. Blige. This is why I think the memoir may have been better to just be told in a straight chronological fashion with Haddish going through her childhood to her stand up comedy career. Having bits and pieces of things linked into her meetings with celebrities was head scratching at times.