This was such a great read for me and was so relatable to me as a woman of Caribbean heritage living in Canada.

I don't need a memoir to be motivational in order to love it but this was motivational and inspiring. The resilience shown by Celina in order to achieve the goals she had set out for her self is amazing. It also shows the possibility of achieving your goals through unconventional ways and outside of the path initial carved out.

I highly recommend this one for memoir lovers.

5/5 MUST READ! HONEST, and UNAPOLOGETIC! I'm so grateful for Celina Caesar-Chavannes writing about her story. I know this was a much-anticipated book as it provided juicy details on Caesar-Chavannes's time as an MP. Although I thought that part was GREAT and well-articulated about diversity and the need to make an actual effort for including diverse voices instead of tokenizing "diversity." For me, though, I enjoyed reading about her journey from taking a few extra years to complete her undergrad to starting a research company. As a young person of colour, I found her story to be very inspiring. I'm so glad to have read this book. ."

RATING:
4/5 stars

REVIEW:
Celina Caesar-Chavannes made it to the national stage in 2015 for being the only black, woman Member of Parliament, representing the Toronto suburb of Whitby. She was selected as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Parliamentary Secretary. In the opening chapter, she briefly shares about her decision to quick the Liberal Party and spend the remainder of her time in the House of Commons as an Independent (having no party affiliation), with more to come on her time in Ottawa later in the book. She then heads back to her humble beginnings in the Caribbean Island of Grenada and there her story begins.

This is a memoir in every sense of the word. This book is a story about Celina’s healing, a journal, where she learn some of the deepest challenges and hardest obstacles Celina experienced, endured and overcame. In a world with so much growing need and desire for better representation, reading about Celina’s childhood and seeing so many similarities to my own made me feel like this book was written for me or about me. Never before have I seen myself in print before, but that it was I saw in Can you Hear Me Now. As I read of Celina’s experiences in childhood, relationship with her mother, father and grandparents I couldn’t help but repeatedly draw parallels between us. You see, Celina, like me is a black Grenadian-Canada woman, who grew up in Toronto in a very Grenadian home.

It is cathartic for me even reading about her as a young woman getting in trouble at home, struggling at times in school, having issues within her familial relationships, and STILL overcoming and making a positive impact in her life. It causes the reader to reflect on their own trials and struggles and confront the buried and underlying things which we protect from others’ view.

This is the type of story where you know how it ends (if you paid any attention to her at all during her political career), but you’re still cheering Celina on as you’re reading, hoping that she will prevail in the end.

*Spoiler alert* She does.

I can hear you Celina, and you’ve encouraged me to speak up and speak out and make sure that my voice is also heard.

I’m grateful to Penguin Random House Canada and Netgalley for the advanced readers copy (ARC) I received in exchange for this fair and non-biased review.

I enjoyed this memoir immensely. It was filled with unabashed honesty and bluntness. I loved how Celina demonstrates in her memoir that embracing one’s own authenticity, the thing that makes you unique without fear or any reprisal is a form of self-care, self-love and true self-acceptance. A great nugget of wisdom to take from this memoir.

*Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada & NetGalley for this Ebook in exchange for my honest review

Celina Caesar-Chavannes is to be admired for her grit and fortitude and her ability to plow ahead no matter what. Her parents came to Canada two years before she did and they were reunited when she was a toddler. Left behind in Grenada, she was initially raised by her formidable, admirable grandmother, Celina's parents put their hopes and dreams in her and that was a lot of pressure to carry and her reactions/rebellions were classically first generation Canadian but you can just sense the love and support that her big extended family wrapped her in. What her parents instilled in her the most is that she could do anything. What she accomplished before getting into politics was truly inspiring. A disciplined, smart and passionate individual, her conflicts with the prime minister were inevitable. It's clear that his encouragement of her running for office had more to do with him ticking the right boxes than actually using any of her talents. But also, she should have realized that even the most talented individual should be prepared to bide their time and prove themselves before being given a big job. She was devastated when she was not selected for Trudeau's first cabinet. Understandable, given that Trudeau's first cabinet was all about ticking boxes and there were some spectacularly underqualified people selected. He did make her his own parliamentary secretary, but she claims the position came with no duties. It seemed the only time Caesar-Chavannes was called upon was when Trudeau needed a Black face on the podium. People will read this memoir for different reasons than why Caesar-Chavannes wrote it. She doesn't come across as well as she thinks she does, but ultimately, the memoir is a damning indictment of Trudeau's leadership style.