Reviews posted to StoryGraph and Goodreads on 3/21/24. Review will be posted to amazon on release day.

Having read Hanif’s previous work I knew that this book wouldn’t just be about basketball in Ohio and I was so pleased to see how far and wide Hanif explored in this book. The structure of this novel was so unique and interesting with different sections being broken down as periods in a game and time ticking down on the page. There is a mix of prose and poetry that leaves rich layers that grab and hold the reader’s attention. I loved the tenderness and ferocious love that Hanif had for his neighborhood and it’s people. The basketball in the book felt pushing and at times punishing. Ultimately I love a book that can bring me to tears and this book had me crying and longing for my people and my neighborhood. Hanif has done it again and I look forward to reading anything he decides to release in the future

Hanif Abdurraqib is one of the absolute best writers going. This book is so layered and rich. It's about basketball, it's about aviation, and it's about so much more. This book threads memoir with politics with pop culture, as Abdurraqib's books always do. The way he pulls threads together, like connecting the NBA draft with a grandmother's love of playing the lottery, is incredibly masterful. A truly powerful book.

Abdurraqib's lyrical memoir is framed around how basketball has intersected with his life. The writing is beautiful but as I read it, I wanted to know more about both his life and some of the basketball moments that he mentions. For those who know Ohio high school basketball and have experienced the highs and lows of LeBron James (specifically as he relates to Ohio), this book will be a gift.

Hear me out… a book about basketball that will make you cry? It’s structurally done in quarters, half time, etc. like a game, but just when you think he’s talking about basketball BAM he’s really talking about what you thought was an incredible singular feeling that he’s somehow able to articulate perfectly. It’s also a love letter to Ohio and a vulnerable account of feeling both pride and disgrace with the place you call home. No one is, or will ever do it like Hanif.

"There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension" by Hanif Abdurraqib is a deep and reflective novel. A life story and perspective, told with an original mixture of passion for basketball, as well as personal experiences and thinking. Definitely different in its rhythm and expression of describing powerful emotions. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

Fantastic book. Amazing author. Lucky to have been able to read this. Amazing take on the game of basketball and how personal it was to the author.

This is a hauntingly beautiful book that’s about basketball, but so much more than that. I had tears running down my face during the last chapters as I didn’t want the book to end. I don’t know if I ever read a book as mesmerizing as this one in how it captures the essence of basketball and childhood and what it means to be a fan and a resident of a city with all of its dreams and heartache and hopes. This is the type of book to slowly just be absorbed into and let it take your emotions where they go.

This is the most beautiful written non fiction I’ve ever read. It’s part cultural commentary, part memoir, and completely profound, rich, and moving. I’ve not read anything like it.

Abdurraqib explores success, who “makes it” and why, and the role models society builds for us through an examination of basketball alongside his own life. The better a book, the harder time I have talking about it. I do not have the words to even remotely do justice to what he has accomplished here.

The book is broken up like a basketball game, with a pregame, quarters, halftime, and timeouts. And because he is a genius, every time I thought we were talking about a specific aspect of the sport, we were actually talking about something much more abstract and universal. I couldn’t care less about basketball, and yet what he does here moved me to tears.

Much thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishers for allowing me to preview the excellent book There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib. Hanif Abdurraqib is one of the best essayists and memoirists writing currently, and he may end up being the voice of my generation. There’s Always This Year is the 3rd book I’ve read by Abdurraqib, and this was by far the most personal and intimate one I’ve read. After reading both Go Ahead in the Rain and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, I’ve come to appreciate his style as a welcoming and personal style that I feel like I’m in a conversation with him… like we’re sitting down to catch up after some time away, and I’m all ears to hear about what he has to share. I wouldn’t say that his style is conversational, but there’s something about his writing that just welcomes me in and makes me feel like I’m sitting next to him. Maybe it’s some of the shared experiences with music, liking a lot of the same bands and music, but it’s much deeper than that, and I think that with There’s Always This Year, Abdurraqib takes his subjects much deeper than the surface level. It’s like his some kind of word archeologist, delving into the history of basketball to plumb the social and cultural connections and developments they have birthed into his world and ours. I’d like to say this book is about basketball… the title and the cover lead us to believe that. Even his first section discussing the Fab 5 at Michigan makes us think that this is going to be a book about basketball, but it is so much more. I am amazed at Abdurraqib’s ability to use a subject like basketball as a launching point or touchstone to go beyond and explore issues and problems in society as well as his own personal experiences, whether they are with family, friends, school, or the justice system. For example, the section about Chris Webber and Jalen Rose, as well as other members of the Fab 5, starts out discussing their uniforms, then seems to go into the baggy shorts era, exploring this trend. He then ends up talking about hair, and how baldies were popular at this time, and then moves into his own experience with hair, his father’s hair, and time, and then into Lebron James. Much of the book examines the Cavs and Lebron James, but I found it fascinating to see how Abdurraqib uses these points to move from one subject to another in such a seamless manner. For many of my students, I would imagine asking for some kind of transition or indication that there was a connection or movement from one idea to another, but Abdurraqib is such a deft (and def) writer that he is able to make these kinds of connections in a subtle and personal way. He also does his research, citing facts and statistics that may seem inconsequential or obscure, but he manages to imbue with meaning and significance. It was also great to learn a lot about basketball, particularly his interest in players who did may not stand out in the history and records of the NBA; yet Abdurraqib is able to give them their dues and through his own personal connections with these players, he elevates their contributions and playing to importance, even if it is through his memory. I absolutely loved this book, and it reminds me that I need to read some of Hanif Abdurraqib’s other books, especially Little Devil in America, which has been on my to read list for some time. This is a wonderful book, tied together by basketball but about so much more, and so important to read today as Abdurraqib explores issues of inequality, injustice, as well as the challenges of defining yourself and exploring your identity today.

This book is beautiful, poetic commentary on basketball- and so much more. It is commentary on home- making a home wherever you are, never leaving home, leaving home but always missing it- loneliness, mourning, endings, and survival.

Another indisputable win for me from Abdurraqib. A book you want to take your time with and soak up every word.

Not a basketball fan, but Abdurraqib reminds that no matter the subject matter, he will wrap you in his words until you feel at home. I loved the pulling between loneliness and hopefulness, and past and future. Truly a master storyteller.

There's Always This Year is beautifully written and almost feels incomparable to any other book. It's an almost unforgettable book that still feels subtle. It's one I am excited to read again as I am sure I will get something new from it with each re-read.

I’ve never read a love letter to basketball that felt quite like this. I love the sport, have loved it since I was a kid, but Hanif Abdurraqib has unlocked some of the magic that makes it so special. But this book is not even really about basketball so much as it is about the people that play it, the people who make the mythologies around it, the towns that rally for a team or a player.

Abdurraqib has a way of writing moments to feel like personal memories I’ve lost and have just now recovered. I’ve not once been to Cleveland or Columbus or Ohio, but it almost feels like I have, his writing flowing into and illuminating the cracks in the concrete, the corners of his neighborhood. This is a book firmly about Home, about coming home and loving home even when home is called a “war zone” by the people who will never understand it. This is also a book about how difficult it is to be alive or to survive, how hard and violent and lonely life can be. But there’s basketball. There are underdogs and miracles and dreams. There is longing and love songs. There are people who love us and people who we have loved, even if they are gone and can’t return home.

If you have already read and loved Hanif’s other works, you will once again fall in love here. And if you haven’t, this is a great place to join in! So much thanks to Netgalley and Random House for this eARC, this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and it certainly delivered!

Gorgeous, insightful prose that keeps you glued to the page—whether or not you're a basketball fan. A love letter to a place, a feeling, and those we've lost, a meditation. Abdurraqib's writing feels at once holy and utterly grounded in this place we call home. I highlighted so much, and can't wait to go back and read his previous works.

Giving There’s Always This Year all the stars. This book was magical. This transcends so much beyond basketball in a subtle and beautiful way. It is a story about growing up both literally and metaphorically. It is about finding and embracing home wherever you are. Surrounded by the people who love and support you most. But then of course there’s basketball. There has never been a better book written about the sport and it will be hard to top this one.

This is one of the hardest reviews I've ever written because I don't know what to say other than, "Wow, this was really good." There's Always This Year is Hanif Abdurraqib's best yet. Abdurraqib's writing is so powerful it made me nostalgic for a sport that never had a big impact on my life and a place I've never been.

The special skill that Abdurraqib has that so few writers do is his ability to get the reader to trust him. He earns this trust through exquisitely crafted sentences and layered points of view that can only possibly discovered by someone who has really, truly thought about a subject. The vulnerability and self-reflection found in this book's pages are to be loved, admired, and mourned. There is yet to be a book by Abdurraqib that hasn't shifted a part of me or made me reflect inward and want to be better.

There's Always This Year is a must-read in 2024. Like all of his work, it deserves the attention and praise it receives.

This is one of the better accounts of being a sports fan that I have read. Abdurraqib is smoothly able to interweave his own story, sordid as it is at times yet always honest, with LeBron James and his comings and goings from Cleveland. I liked the format of the book, styled like a basketball game in four 12-minute quarters, and the fluidity of the writing.

The word gratitude comes to mind. Waves and waves of gratitude to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an eARC of this work. Much gratitude to Hanif for his words, always. What an immense honor and privilege to read this in exchange for my own thoughts. I can't thank you all enough.

Hanif is a magician in his own right, not only due to his love for the movie, The Prestige, but throughout his work, he, himself, follows the traditional rules of prestigious performance; he presents an idea, the idea is then stripped away as we are guided through a tapestry of, at times, seemingly unrelated topics, ideas, and thoughts, only to be brought back to where we began, with a feeling that every stop in that journey was purposeful. There's Always This Year is perhaps Hanif's greatest trick, using basketball, the structure of its game, and Lebron James as vehicles to tell his most intimate story yet, the story of life and everything after, and his return to the city he loves, Columbus, Ohio.

I mentioned gratitude. Each section, every word, is handled with such a deeply-rooted level of care. Out of respect for that, I, too, felt a responsibility to cradle each word with an equal measure of care. As much as I wanted to race through this, as much as I felt and heard the clock ticking, I took my time, often re-reading sections. I held on as long as I could. You quickly learn that this is the book Hanif has always wanted to write and I cannot wait for my physical copies to arrive. I purchased multiple to gift to friends and I am counting the days until I get to share this experience with them. Do yourself a favor and pick-up the audiobook when it drops, too. If you haven't heard Hanif read, well, you are in for a treat. The amount of love that bursts through these pages will certainly be expanded on as he narrates.

There's Always This Year is a triumph. A monumental work from a voice that will echo through decades, long after the clock runs out.

Ohio. Street ball. LeBron James. The Cavs. Hope. Solidarity. Loyalty. This love letter to all these things is one of Abdurraqib's finest. This long form memoir slash sports analysis slash ode to Home has a unique structure, that of the four quarters of a basketball game. Abdurraqib waxes lyrically through the ups and downs of his life, race, LeBron's times on the Cavs. It's a spectacular ode by one of our nation's most gifted essayists.

Buy it. Buy all his books. You don't need to know anything about any of the topics to enjoy his thoughts.
I'll be pushing it on to all my friends and total strangers.

This book is phenomenal. There is a conversational and stream of consciousness convo style of writing to Haniq that works so well I am astounded in the best way every time I read his work. This book is about but not about basketball and that is honestly the best description I can give it. It's about leaving but not, outsurviving (is that a word) yourself? Does the previous sentence convey what I am actually trying to say? Just, go read this book. Masterful.