I’m very critical of memoirs because I think they can be hard to write successfully. Sometimes the writer focuses too much on one aspect of their life or maybe it’s not told in a cohesive way. But my biggest pet peeve about memoirs is that not everyone’s life warrants one. This is where I landed with “The Right Kind of White” by Garrett Bucks. I’m just not sure why this was considered enough content for a full book.

Bucks is a white male who decided to write about his experiences, including his privilege. However, this book didn’t really examine too much of that perspective or its implications throughout history. Rather, Bucks focuses more on autobiographical details. Maybe this is just a case of my expectations being really different from the actual book. What I wanted was a white man examining how his privilege has impacted his life and the world around him – what I got was details about Bucks going from job to job and basically failing upward.

At the end of the day, I need some drama in my memoirs, or at least some general conflicts. Bucks doesn’t really have any. His major childhood trauma was moving to another state for a few years, until his family moved back to the Midwest. He has a health scare as an adult, but SPOILER it just turns out to be sleep apnea. Race is only discussed somewhat fleetingly, like when he teaches with Teach for America at a school on a reservation. The Indigenous students learn to trust him, but then he leaves after a year anyway (not sure what the exact lesson that was supposed to be learned here). He wants to get involved after a string of violent, racially-charged police incidents take place, but then somehow doesn’t do anything even after mentioning that he feels guilty as a white man and wants to take action.

The reviews on Goodreads so far are pretty positive, so it’s quite possible that I just didn’t get the point of this book. I would probably have gained some appreciation in a more streamlined essay format, but as a full-length book, I just found myself wondering if the biggest example of white, male privilege is that he was able to publish a book solely based on his average life story.

2 stars (can’t give just 1 because he did spend time writing this, and maybe I just didn’t get it)

*Free copy provided by Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review*