4.5 stars rounded up to 5.*

Holy cow. I received this ARC before reading hype on this book so I also purchased the audiobook. I am SO glad I listened to this. Safiya Sinclair is a VOICE. She is a true poet.

Her memoir is interesting for the uniqueness of her experience, but it is singular in that she tells her story with the mentality and intention of a poet.

Truly beautiful.

*with thanks to NetGalley for this digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.

A beautifully written memoir of a woman raised under the thumb of a strict Rastafarian father. Most of the book is filled with anecdotes of fear and oppression from this man. The author gives a vivid description of the Rastafarian belief system as molded by her father’s interpretation. While, I enjoyed this book, and I know the author’s first love is poetry, I found that love seeped too much into what should have been a less wordy book. I also have a hard time with her apparent forgiveness and acceptance of her father after writing 95% of the book in the vein of his lack of worthiness for redemption. While this book is not her mother’s story, I would liked to have been given more of a glimpse into how she made her life away from the father. Maybe that’s another book. Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

How to Say Babylon is Sinclair’s reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.

How to Say Babylon is Safiya Sinclair’s memoir of growing up in a strict Rastafarian household. I learned so much about that culture – all I knew up to this point was that Bob Marley was a Rastafarian and that smoking pot has a role in it. Safiya was not allowed to cut her dreadlocks or wear pants. Her father was intent on making sure she wasn’t corrupted by the outside world – what he called Babylon. She wasn’t allowed to have friends who weren’t Rasta. When she starts attending an elite private school on scholarship, she’s made of fun of by the other kids for being what they call a dirty Rasta.

Safiya’s father also beats her and her siblings when they disobey him, even for minor infractions. The belt he beats them with hangs up where it’s visible and can remind everyone of what’s coming for them if they act up. When Safiya gets older, her mother helps her submit her poetry to competitions and she becomes a fairly well-known poet in Jamaica at a young age. You can tell reading this book that she is a poet. Her prose is beautiful – so descriptive. The book reads like a novel. I had to keep reminding myself I was reading a memoir. Highly recommended.

Wow. This is a powerful and lyrical memoir. You can definitely tell that Sinclair is a poet. It took me a few tries to jump into this book, but once I got about 10% into it I was hooked. The story is definitely painful to read and I appreciated the grace Sinclair gives her family. Her mother's strength throughout is incredible.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon & Schuster, 37 Ink for the advanced reader copy.

This is a top tier memoir. The author is a Jamaican poet who shares her life growing up in a Rastafarian household. Before reading this memoir, I knew very little about Rastafarian practices and beliefs. The author does an excellent job giving the history of Rastafarians and cultural significance to Jamaica and the world. At the same time, she gives readers a glimpse into her family dynamics in a Rastafarian household.

Since the author is also a poet, she crafts breathtaking passages. She also uses the elements of a novel while telling her life story. She builds suspense when there are tense scenes as well as uses foreshadowing to keep the reader on edge to keep reading.

One of my favorite quotes from the book: “That living in a Rasta household was like being at a constant church, except the scripture was as variable as the sky, my father both the god of the sea and the god of the sun.

Thanks to NetGalley for a digital copy of this book.

How to Say Babylon is a powerful memoir that is the current Read With Jenna book. Safiya Sinclair tells about her upbringing in a very strict Rastafarian home in Jamaica where she and her sisters were abused for being female. I highly recommend this book.

"How to Say Babylon" by Safiya Sinclair is a compelling and beautifully written memoir that offers a glimpse into a life filled with challenges, cultural exploration and self-discovery. Safiya's prose is a treat for the senses, making this memoir a must-read for those who appreciate powerful and lyrical storytelling.

From her experiences with colonial peers at school to her interactions with neighbors who don't come from strict Rastafarian backgrounds like her own, Safiya's memoir offers a rich tapestry of cultural and personal exploration. We also learn the meaning of "babylon" and gain a deeper understanding of life as a true Rastafarian--beyond the dreadlocks and reggae music.

On her journey of self-discovery, Safiya finds and claims her voice. As an award-winning poet, she brings a distinctive and captivating lyricism to her memoir. Her writing is nothing short of gorgeous, painting vivid images and evoking deep emotions.

While this memoir is exceptional, I rated it 4 out of 5 stars because, at times, the narrative felt a bit hard to follow. Nevertheless, this is a small criticism in light of the overall beauty and power of Safiya Sinclair's storytelling.

I am grateful to Simon & Schuster and 37 Ink for providing me with an advanced reader copy through the NetGalley app.

Normally I devour a good memoir, but not this one. It was a slow read for me as it focused mainly on abuse. I know more about this poet/author’s upbringing in a Jamaican Rastafarian family, but it was not a pleasant read.

Sophia Sinclair grew up under the abusive bullying tactics of her Rastafarian father Janny Sinclair in Jamaica. She had three sisters and one brother and a mother but she would be the one to start the unraveling of her fathers hold and the independence of her family. Her father wasn’t her only bully after winning poetry awards and being sent to the elite private school in Jamaica she would then get bullied by her white classmates who clearly thought she was inferior throughout all of her insecurities she thought she had an idea of what she wanted to be but she definitely knew what she didn’t want to be in that was just a wife who cater to mother and children so every decision she made was the one that moved her away from that because of this her father started to dislike her more and more. This was such a beautifully written autobiography and I am not one who likes autobiographies but it was so good and I found it so hard to put down also it made me so angry that this young lady who survived so much physical and mental abuse would come to America and have to suffer the stupid idiotic racism her neighbors in Charlottesville Virginia thought she deserved. We should be nice to those not born in the country we live because imagine how scary being in a foreign country and she was all alone and to have to go through that. In any event the jokes on them because she wrote about them in this book and although we don’t know their names I’m sure you know someone just like them because I do I love this book and highly recommend it if you love autobiographies then you definitely want to read How To Save Babylon by Sophia Sinclair it’s beautifully written in Oso interesting. I want to thank the publisher and Net Galley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

A beautifully written memoir about Sinclair’s childhood growing up in Jamaica as a Rastafarian. Her prose is elegant and lush juxtaposed against the abuse by her slowly unraveling father. This book did lag at times but it was wonderful story about strength and words and love. Thank you to NetGalley for an opportunity to read and review this book.

If ever anyone needed proof that the best poets are forged by fire, How to Say Babylon should lay the question to rest. In lyric prose and unflinching honesty, Sinclair weaves the story of her life--the twisted and knotted history of Black repression, Black anger, Black art, Black hope, mixed with misogyny, poverty, and generational trauma--much as her dreadlocks twisted and knotted down her back from the age of 8 until the day she cut herself free. What sets this story apart--other than Sinclair's musical, rhythmic language and the love of her native Jamaica that shines through every page--is her full embrace of the thorny history of her family, past, present, and future. Her relentless pursuit of understanding, of forgiveness, of hope for the future. Hers is a spirit that would not be smothered, that came out of the crush of life like a honed carbon, cutting through repression and pain with truth and beauty.

The word that comes to mind when reading How to Say Babylon is pressing. It is a story of a way of life that I did not know I needed to learn of before, so used to stereotypes of Rastas was I as a woman with Trinidadian heritage. But it is a critical telling that demands one’s attention and rewards it with gorgeous, poetic expression and the tale of the triumph of a woman and her family over a twisted ideology that would have help them captive.

Read Around the World: <b>Jamaica</b>

My heart hurts so much after finishing this. It will take me D A Y S to get over this story and to be honest, I doubt I will ever get OVER it, it will just become a part of me and I can see me thinking of parts of this over the years out of nowhere - it is that kind of book.
I honestly cannot write much more a review than this...it cut very close to home for me and I spent much of it in tears. I am grateful for the end and what happens, but I do wish we'd had more of how that all came about. Even so, it was nice to end in a good way after all that pain. From personal experience, not everyone gets that and it gives hope to see one that does.

Thank you to NetGalley, Safiya Sinclair, and Simon and Schuster for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Safiya grows up in Jamaica, the daughter of strict and often abusive Rastafarian father. Her early years while laced with good memories, grow dark as she reaches puberty. The perimeters of her life set by her father become smaller and smaller. Thankfully, she is an intelligent young woman who is seen by significant adults her life and is able to advance and given educational opportunities not afforded to others. However, the further she pulls the stronger her father pulls her back. The one area he can not breach is her poetry which allows her the freedom she often dreams. This memoir tells of her growing up and breaking away from her family even as she is emotionally scarred and hurt from the abuse and separation from them.

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair is a captivating memoir from start to finish. It is Safiya Sinclair's story of growing up in Jamaica under an extremely controlling Rastafarian father. She was not allowed to wear makeup, pants, jewelry, or have friends. Her father was a tyrant who ruled with an iron thumb, but amid the harshness, Safiya was able to break free, largely in part due to her tenacity and love of poetry. The writing is beautiful to read and listen to, it is obvious that Safiya has a love of words and I'm so happy she narrated the book herself.

A heart-wrenching memoir of triumph, abuse, self-love, and the power of writing. A brave telling of the author’s life. A beautifully written memoir filled with education for the reader and emotion and finally hope.

Thank you Simon & Schuster and Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I absolutely loved this book. I knew only the most basic info about Rastafarian culture and really about Jamaica in general, so this was truly a learning experience for me. I also really loved the beauty of Sinclair's writing. Even when she's talking about violence, abuse, and sexual harassment, she never loses the poetic quality of her writing. It makes for such a unique experience. Definitely the best memoir I've read this year and it will be going into my top 10 favorite memoirs with the likes of Born A Crime, Crying In H Mart, Educated, Will, and more. 10/10 would recommend for anyone who enjoys the memoir format.

How to Say Babylon is a beautiful memoir. It is clear to see that the author is a poet, with her eloquent and detailed descriptions of the scenery around where she grew up. I was unfamiliar with Rastafarian culture prior to reading this and I learned so much. I admire the courage it took Safiya Sinclair to stand up to her violent, controlling father and to fight for her freedom. This was a wonderful memoir that I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

Safiya Sinclair’s memoir is comprehensive. She begins it before her birth, considering where her parents came from and why they became interested in Rastafari, and moves through her childhood and into her young adulthood. In meticulous prose anchored by a remarkable reconstruction of memory (few memoirs do dialogue like this one), Sinclair paints a picture of her Montego Bay childhood, from the pull of the ocean and the smiles of her siblings to her father’s temper and, as the cover suggests, the creation and eventual cutting of her dreadlocks, an iconic symbol of Rastafari. Sinclair fluidly explains elements Rastafari for readers who aren’t familiar with it. Her father’s opposition to “Babylon,” the Rastafari term for the ills of Western society, defines Sinclair’s childhood, and the book.

Yet Sinclair’s mother subtly—by design—anchors the book as well. Sinclair’s father expected her to fit into Rastafari's patriarchal systems. Without many of the most obvious markers of “independent women,” Sinclair’s mother is a force. Her quiet intelligence leads her to tutor her four children, who become some of the strongest students in the Caribbean. I felt that the memoir really hit its stride when Sinclair leaned into her journey of becoming a poet. The poetry world was not without its own oppressions, but writing allowed Sinclair to begin to make sense of her father’s violence and break out of it.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the memoir is how Sinclair manages to be simultaneously unflinching and loving. There is ample understanding for both of her parents; contextualizing her father's actions doesn’t excuse them. At the end, I cried contemplating the power of a parental apology.

I see a lot of well-deserved love for this book, but I have to say that it isn’t my favorite of Sinclair’s books. That honor goes to her poetry collection, Cannibal (2017, see my 8/3/23 post). If you liked Sinclair’s language in this memoir, I strongly recommend you check out her poems, which are even more astounding.

This memoir is about the author growing up with an abusive father who also happens to be Rastafarian. Jamaica comes alive with the described patois and culture. I learned about a religion I knew very little about. An additional theme is about being different. Especially in classes where Sinclair had a scholarship, awkwardly painful encounters will make you cringe. Between the discrimination and abuse Sinclair writes about, there is a dark cloud. But then she finds poetry and although that leads her to experience more misogyny and ultimately assaults, there is a success story here and family love and loyalty. Beautifully written and ultimately uplifting.

Copy provided by the publisher and NetGalley