Published in 2015
224 pages
Issa Rae is an American actress, writer, producer, and comedian. Rae first garnered attention for her work on the YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl. Since 2011, Rae has continued to develop her YouTube channel, which features various short films, web series, and other content created by Black people. Rae has achieved wider recognition as the co-creator, co-writer, and star of the HBO television series Insecure (2016–2021), for which she has been nominated for multiple Golden Globes Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards. Her 2015 memoir, titled The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, became a New York Times best-seller. In 2018 and 2022, Rae was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. Rae has also starred in feature films, with roles in the drama The Hate U Give (2018), the fantasy comedy Little (2019), the romance The Photograph (2020), the romantic comedy The Lovebirds (2020), and the comedy thriller Vengeance (2022). She will also voice Jessica Drew / Spider-Woman in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023). Rae provided the voice work for the short film Hair Love, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2020.
What is this book about?
In the bestselling tradition of Sloan Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake and Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, a collection of humorous essays on what it’s like to be unabashedly awkward in a world that regards introverts as hapless misfits, and black as cool.
My name is “J” and I’m awkward—and black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be. That someone was right. Where do I start?
Being an introvert in a world that glorifies cool isn’t easy. But when Issa Rae, the creator of the Shorty Award–winning hit series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,” is that introvert—whether she’s navigating love, work, friendships, or “rapping”—it sure is entertaining. Now, in this debut collection of essays written in her witty and self-deprecating voice, Rae covers everything from cybersexing in the early days of the Internet to deflecting unsolicited comments on weight gain, from navigating the perils of eating out alone and public displays of affection to learning to accept yourself—natural hair and all.
A reflection on her own unique experiences as a cyber pioneer yet universally appealing, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl is a book no one—awkward or cool, black, white, or other—will want to miss.
