The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Review of The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
“With heightened awareness of cultural sensitivity comes great responsibility. If we’re not careful, ‘diversity’ might become an item people start checking off a list and nothing more—a shallow, shadowy thing with but one dimension,”
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (2021). Published by Atria Books.
I heard about this book way before it was even released; there was so much hype for this to come out in the literary world. It’s because of the content this book covers, especially in publishing.
As someone whose worked in the publishing and editorial industry all throughout college, it’s completely obvious about how white the upper echelons of this society is. It can also be terribly elitist at times, where having an Ivy League is the decision factor in whether you’re going to get hired or not.
Anyways, I, too, was excited to read this book. And so when I finally got my paws on it, I read it until 2 am the night I got it. That’s right. I read it in one sitting. But after reading it, I needed to sit back and stare at the walls for awhile and dwell upon the plot for a day or two because it gets really weird in a random point and then spirals into even more weirdness as we continue deeper into the plot. It’s a very well written-novel, it just…is strange.
Let’s jump into this review, shall we?
Book Blurb
Get Out meets The Stepford Wives in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.
Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.
Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.
It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.
A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or overlooked in the workplace, The Other Black Girlwill keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist.
Content
The setting of this book is extremely familiar to me, and so is our main character. We’re live from New York City in 2019, where Nella, our protagonist, is just trying to make it in an extremely white office at the publishing company called Wagners.
They have an office in a high-rise building in Manhattan; that’s the level of boujee we’re talking. Everyone at the office except Nella is white and from money; they tend to have pedicured degrees from Ivy Leagues and can afford the meager salary that they live on from the office. The only nonwhite individuals are the mailroom workers, secretaries, and cleaning staff.
And so when Nella gets whiff of haircare products for natural Black hair one day, she gets real excited. And then the girl who owns these products, Hazel, gets hired at the office, making there two Black girls.
Sounds great for diversity, right? Until these strange notes start appearing on Nella’s desk threatening her to get out of Wagner, and Hazel starts upending her job. When a famous author has a particularly racist character in his book, everyone is blind to it but Nella, and even Hazel defends the character. And so Nella becomes paranoid and completely shut into herself, thinking that she is being stalked and that Hazel is stealing her job from her.
I’m not too sure if Nella was the right protagonist for this story. She’s awkward and kind of shy, and she even admits halfway through the book that she lived a privileged life. Nella grew up in a white suburb and went to a public Ivy League, thus making her in the caliber of her workmates; the only difference is that she’s Black.
Her best friend, Malaika, is compared to her and even speaks in a quote-on-quote more Black way, having grown up in the African-American communities of Atlanta. For Nella to be telling this story, it leads to this assumption from the get-go that you need to be somewhat assimilated like Nella is, or well-connected like Hazel, in order to make it in this white elitist industry. There’s no grey area, it has to be this way. As close to home as it hits, it’s not something I want to be reminded of in my literature.
Then this novel begins to screw you over mentally by switching over to a timeline in the 1980s, when popular editor and author combo Kendall Rae and Diana are publishing Burning Hearts, a book hailed for its representation of Black Americans.
We then also have a POV switch to a girl named Shani, whose entire career was messed up by another Black girl named Eva, who is strangely familiar to our readers. It is through Shani’s narrative we incorporate the entire concept of crime and spy thrillers into this novel, which slowly turns into a strange underground movement to resist a community of Black women looking to assimilate by usurping other Black women.
It’s a wild ride y’all, but I don’t understand this strange drama-bending aspect of the novel. It works for television, but I’m not sure it works for this kind of novel because it happens way too suddenly and then begins to spiral down this path.
Overall Thoughts
I think I would’ve enjoyed this novel so much more if it had a different main character. I would’ve loved to see someone like Hazel’s story, if she were actually a normal person and not looking to usurp her coworkers, and how it’s like trying to rise to the top of publishing as a Black woman.
But then the story kind of becomes wack and too-much like a television crime drama where there’s an entire resistance and people are getting kidnapped with cars. It’s strange, that’s for sure.
Like I’d love to read about someone who organizes a poetry organization for young Black girls across the country, or someone just trying to change the publishing industry. The book also ends on a cliffhanger, which implies something of a sequel to me, and I wasn’t a fan of that because it wasn’t even about our main character. Nella’s fate is just implied and that’s that.
