This is a memoir written by a black man about his experiences at Eton.
I found this book very interesting. I really enjoyed the writing style. Well worth a read

This was an interesting look into the elite Eton school experience from a perspective not often talked about. Musa Okwonga did a great job of setting the scene and checking his own privilege throughout the book. However, the choppy vignette style of the writing was different to be hooked in by as the author often jumped from one thing to the next quite quickly. I felt this book had some pacing issues but other than that, I enjoyed reading Okwonga's perspective on his time at Eton and the lives some of his fellow alumni now lead.

Musa Okwonga is known for writing and speaking about football. See, I told you I found a way to link these works. After the loss of his father, Musa Okwonga sees a documentary about Eton, a famous UK Public/private school of Prime Ministers, and dreams about attending that institution. Despite his working-class, Black roots, his dream comes true. In this book, he explores his journey to and through his education. He outlines his experiences of being a working-class black boy living in a white, upper class, elite world. He explores how the UK educates its elite, imbuing them with an overblown sense of self-importance and self-confidence, totally isolating them from the real world. This book explores the issues of Race and class as they operate in a privileged world. Another recommend.

Very surprising interpretation of a memoir, this! Part essay, poetic in parts, but still a very one sided and slanted view which I found hard to swallow at times.

Okwonga clearly tries very hard to not name or offend anyone in this memoir, but it results in a rather stale and stilted prose. This might well be his interpretation of the truth, but I doubt he'll fool many readers, who will peer through the cracks, as I did.

As someone who went to a UK boarding school, but never really belonged (for socio-economic reasons, and without the racial divide that Okwonga also experienced), the premise of this book caught my attention immediately. It's an excellent examination of the strange world of British Public Schools - what it teaches students, what it expects of students, and what they're led to believe will happen for them in the future. Eton, of course, is on a whole other level to where I went, but it's an important read for anyone interested in UK education, politics, class, and more. Definitely recommended.

Musa’s memoir of his time at Erin college as a black boy from a working class town.

I had really high hopes for this and had read so much praise for Musa’s writing. In the end I was left a bit disappointed.

Whilst the subject matter was interesting and addressed some important matters such as race, institutional racism and the privilege of wealth, I was left wanting more from this.

The book is written in very short, unconnected chapters which felt disjointed to me. I couldn’t get fully invested and drawn into the story as I didn’t feel that it went deep enough.

An interesting enough read but I was disappointed by the lack of depth.

This book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

This book is full of stunning writing on a sentence level and a degree of understanding of self that is impressive and inspiring at once.

I expected this to be a bit more scathing but lambasting isn't the style here. It's more investigating people and how society shapes everyone in ways both good and bad.

I would have liked this to cement itself into a more definite kind of plot. The vignettes didn't build on one another for me.

Still, Okwonga is a huge talent that we have the privilege of reading today.

My thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Musa Okwonga isn’t your average Eton College student. The son of Ugandan refugees, Okwonga explores race, class, and privilege in his memoir, One of Them, about his time at the school which previously educated 20 prime ministers. One of Them delves into the traditions, culture, and power structures found at Eton College. A real look into an experience only a select number of men get to be a part of.

What sets this memoir apart is Okwonga’s compelling insight into institutionalised racism in the UK and his attempts to navigate himself through it. By taking extra care not to get into trouble with the headmaster and the police to terrifying accounts of racist people he has encountered, including a man who threateningly exposed his collection of swastikas to Okwonga, this poignant memoir highlights his struggles as a black man through all walks of life.

Okwonga is self-critical about his upbringing but makes it easy to detract from his privileged education because of the awful experiences he had been subjected to due to his race. He empathises with the high expectations placed upon the white, upper-class men who attend Eton — some being UK politicians in power today — but knows he will always be different. The colour of his skin is a constant reminder that he is not like everybody else.

One of Them is an unexpectedly short read packed with short snippets of Okwonga’s life at Eton, the period leading up to his school reunion and beyond. The brief chapters made it difficult to understand how he’s feeling truly, and his writing approach is slightly unorthodox. He constantly jumps back and forth in his chronology during his time at Eton, making his experiences difficult to place. He also talks about his experience as though he was going through it presently, despite writing it many years later, and reflecting on what young Okwonga will learn from this in the future. Both of which are confusing and unlike traditional memoirs.
Later in life, a therapist remarks how Okwonga can easily talk about his race, privilege, and sexuality, but not so much about his time at school. He claims this is because he doesn’t want to be seen as the “poor little rich boy”, but in this memoir, he blends the talking points perfectly.

His struggles as an outsider in an establishment where its students date back to slave owners combined with the outcome of his successful, privileged education make for a thoroughly intimate read and an appropriate assessment of race and class in the UK today.

Some parts provided an Interesting read about the life of a black student at eton but not the most captivating of books and I had to force myself to carry on reading.

An interesting peek at the world of Eton by someone who "should" have been a total outsider (and would have been in previous decades) and was not your typical Eton student. It really provided some background to all those articles and mentions of Eton I've had in books over the years. Great book for anyone interested in learning more about British upper class life via their elite schools.

Fans of Natives by Akala will enjoy this. I really enjoyed the bitesize chapters, the chronological order and the themes woven throughout. Key themes include classism, racism, sexual identity, the pressures of being a second generation immigrant and what it means to constantly have your guard up. It provides a fascinating insight into one of Britain’s oldest institutions, in the eyes of a middle class black man. Overall it is an important story and I’m sure it will resonate with many people.

I had such high expectations for this book but sadly I only got halfway through before giving up on it. I absolutely love memoirs especially when they focus on childhood/adolescence but this one just didn't work for me. The blurb describes the book as as "unflinching memoir of Musa's five years at Eton in the 1990s which engages with much wider questions about pressing social and political issues: privilege, the distribution of wealth, the rise of the far right in the UK, systemic racism, the 'boys' club' of government and the power of the the few to control the fate of the many". I found that it looked at those 'wider questions' in a very shallow way. The book is comprised of vignettes of memories of Musa's time at Eton. These vignettes are told out of order and often don't include any in depth analysis of the social issues at play. Most of the sections in the first half are Musa fondly remembering sporting events or school friends. There are moments of wider commentary but these are short and lacking in any real depth. In the end I gave up reading because it felt like the second half of the book was going to be much the same as the first.

Musa Okwonga’s One of Them is a thought-provoking and personal look at Eton, a prestigious private school in England, a school that produces many of the country’s future politicians and people in charge. Okwonga’s parents fled to the UK from Uganda and his mother worked very hard for him to be able to go to Eton. As one of the few Black students and coming from a working-class background, he stood in sharp relief against the wealthy white boys who filled the halls. Okwonga describes his experiences, both positive and negative, in small, vivid snippets. He writes about trying not to behave as a ‘stereotypical Black guy’ in order not to prove his classmates right about biases they have, and how that affects him; he writes about instances of racist abuse he faces, as well as the close friends he makes while he’s there. He talks about football, and though that’s not really an interest of mine, you can tell he’s written about it before and loves doing so, because he does make it compelling. For a short read, there are a lot of themes that are touched upon.

Because I’m not British, and Eton and its prestigious presence in the educational ‘landscape’ hasn’t really been part of my life, I don’t think this was as interesting to me as it could have been, though that is no fault of the book. That said, I still found it an engaging read, and Okwonga’s thoughts about the culture of ‘old boys’, how many of the Tory ministers and even the current prime minister stem from Eton, and the myth of the meritocracy, this idea that successful people have got where they are purely on merit, were well expressed and fit in well with his personal experience of Eton. This culture definitely isn’t specific to the U.K. and I recognised a lot of the things Okwonga was talking about in my country (the Netherlands).
Regardless of whether you’re British or intimately acquainted with Eton and its reputation, I think this is a worthwhile read!

One of Them is my first Musa Okwonga and it's one of those books where I wanted to highlight sentences on almost every page. I just want to gush about it!

One of Them is about Musa's experience of growing up and attending Eton College as a young black man. The prestigious school know for producing so much of the UK's political elite has become even more inaccessible to people like Musa over the years, with fees increasing as the years have passed. In reflecting on his own adolescence at the school, Musa contrasts his positive memories against the racism he faced, whilst also exploring how and why the institution manages to produce men who become so embedded in the political establishment.

Musa is measured and thoughtful throughout this book, affectionately describing the teachers who allowed him to blossom as an academic and a young man, and lovingly paying truth to the friendships he forged, but balancing this by examining his schooling through a more remote, critical lens. As he looks back, Musa pays more attention to the microaggressions he faced, revealing how the privilege and shamelessness many Eton students are born into leaves them not only dismissive of those without their freedoms, but completely out of touch with the realities of life for the majority. As Musa says, some have never seen poverty with their own eyes, and some belong to families who have long profited from the welath of colonialism and slavery.

Musa also contrasts the relative privilege he experienced at school to the threats he faced in his home town. Images of racist graffiti and white supremacists lying in wait are ingrained in his memory. As a form of defence, Musa tried to fade into anonymity, using 'John' to ensure his name could not circulate among those who would seek to harm him.

The journalistic balance Musa writes with is always married with palpable emotion, and his style reflects this. You get the sense that he has carefully weighed every word before committing it to the page, and the perfectionism makes for startlingly moving and powerful moments.

I could say so much more about One of Them (the palpable thrill of relived football matches, the beauty with which Musa pays tribute to those he has lost) but I want people to read it for themselves. I am now SO looking forward to In the End, It Was All About Love as I've heard amazing things about it!

One of Them is a fascinating memoir about what it was like as a young working class black boy to go to Eton. Okwonga is a brilliant writer and this book is so readable. It’s a very powerful book that explores racism and privilege but it’s also a personal memoir. I loved reading about what it took to get into Eton and what it was like to study there. Mostly this book was a very insightful look at race in Britain and what it feels like to be black and british. The author is a similar age to me and so it was shocking at times to read about how different his life was to mine just based on the colour of his skin. The fear he has at certain points in his life of people who he knows are looking at him as a young black man was palpable, and the way he was profiled by the police was shocking to read about. This is a book that will make you think but it’s so readable. I definitely want to read more writing by Musa Okwonga and will be going to look up his other books as soon as I’ve finished writing this post. I highly recommend this book, it’s one that I think everyone should read.

The premise sounded very interesting - and reviews I have read are positive - but I feel that this memoir could have done so much more. Yes, it is about the writer attending Eton College and the way the institution is infamous for educating many well-known people, but, for me, it is too fragmented and disparate.

Okwonga is a not a typical Eton student, in terms or his background, his race, his class etc. He makes the most of his time there and goes in to become a good writer. However, the chapters are often extremely brief and I can’t help but feel some sort of disconnection between different sections.

The book is anonymised and I appreciate this - but it seems as if this dehumanises it and makes it less relevant. I realise this is my interpretation and other readers may think quite differently. Ultimately, the incidents written about are interesting but I’m sure the memoir could have delivered more.

With society becoming more aware of terms such as ‘privilege’ and how intersecting factors about ones life impact on how much privilege one has, Musa Okwonga’s ‘One of them’ is a timely memoir.

Eton College is where a large portion of the privileged go to school - royalty, politicians and the rich. The majority of them are from already upper class, white backgrounds, which is what makes this memoir fascinating. Okwonga rights about his experiences as a black, working class young man in the 1990s navigating the school.

I loved his style of writing and how he clearly and concisely takes us through each memory. While it shouldn’t be the job of the oppressed person to request their humanity respected, this book is such an important read to learn more about racism and it’s impact on anyone who is not white.

I truly hope many people add this to their must read lists for 2021.

Thank you Netgalley and Unbound.

A beautiful and thought-provoking book, a privileged insight into the life of a Black kid who found himself studying at one of the most prestigious colleges in the UK, Eton.

A must read memoir, beautifully written and an important reminder that there is still a lot to do when it comes to race, inequality and classism in the UK.

🤩Non-Fiction Memoir  
🤩Eton College Alumni  
🤩An exploration of privilege, class and race in Britain
🤩Poignant, insightful and poetic   
  
Okwonga’s writing is delightful. The short snappy chapters give this a prose feeling and I was absolutely into it. The book doesn’t follow a timeline structure and I found that engaging because it often flitted from memory to memory rather than a rigid retelling of life events.  It gave it more of a sitting with a friend and hearing their story over a cup of coffee feel to it ☕️. 
  
I found the book insightful from a race and gender perspective but also relatable from a class perspective. The insight into Eton was the thing that pulled me towards the book but I left feeling more like I’d won a prize by getting to know Okwonga and experience his writing✨. If anything, I was surprised by his experience of Eton and feel I have a deeper understanding of how the “boys club” ended up in the positions they have and behaving the way they do.   
  
The insidious nature of racism in Britain often encourages a situation where white people here stick their heads in the sand and point to it being “America’s problem”. Okwonga shows us how this racism can affect a Black boy growing up here and how blatant the racism actually can be. It’s painful to read but so necessary.

My thanks to Unbound for a review copy via NetGalley of ‘One of Them: an Eton College Memoir’ by Musa Okwonga in exchange for an honest review.

This proved a very personal and powerful memoir written by a young Black man, who grew up in a predominantly working-class town. While perhaps not a typical Eton College student, Musa Okwonga worked hard during his five years there. Clearly aspects challenged him, though he ultimately felt that his time at the College proved a good experience for him.

Throughout he also reflects upon present day issues including Brexit and the rise of the far right in the U.K. and raises questions linked to various social and political issues: including privilege, systemic racism, and the power of the few to control the fate of the many. As the publishers write: “One of Them is both an intimate account and a timely exploration of race and class in modern Britain.”

This was indeed a fascinating, thought provoking memoir. While dealing with serious subjects, Musa Okwonga also brings warmth and a wry sense of humour to this memoir. While I may not be interested in his writings on football, I certainly plan on seeking out his fiction and poetry as well as looking out for his future projects.