Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor NoahMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I don't know much about Trevor Noah. I catch clips of his show on YouTube or Rolling Stone occasionally, but I'm not a regular fan. However, this book was still pretty interesting. Noah was born to a black mom and a white dad in South Africa during Apartheid. This gave him and his mother (who raised him) a strange status in South Africa, which followed him throughout his life there. I enjoyed reading about his antics as a young kid, his mother's iconoclast and determined personality, and Noah's rise from CD bootlegger to party DJ to comedian. Also notable was his depiction of Apartheid, which I was previously familiar with mostly from reading Long Walk to Freedom and My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience.
My beef with this book, as it is with many memoirs, is one of editing. Both the voice and development of his narrative could have been better presented.
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