Therapy Isn’t Just for White People: A Memoir

Attorney and radio host Imani debuts with a scattered collection of essays about finding success as a Black woman in America. Despite her prestigious career, Imani became “inexplicably discontent” with her life at age 27 and decided to see a therapist. Here, she dives into the transformative moments from her childhood, schooling, and family history that shaped her mental health. The daughter of two Ivy League grads, Imani struggled to fit in at her de facto segregated school; in “The Volume on this Bus Is Astronomical,” she writes, “I developed a dual personality. When I sat at the Black table, I was one person... with my White friends, I was someone else completely.” As she relates in “Thighs that Touch,” those code switching abilities would become essential when she entered the pageant circuit during law school—“[Winning] was validation that I had fully... been accepted by White America”—and later navigated the disillusions of corporate America. Imani is a captivating storyteller, but she has a tendency to move too briskly, skipping haphazardly through time and over resonant emotional beats. The overall effect unfortunately distracts from her gripping takes on thriving in predominately white spaces. The result feels like a superficial primer on racism that, despite the title, barely touches on the nuances of therapy. (Aug.)