RaveLambda LiteraryThere is indeed the languorous quality of dream to many of these essays–particularly the first and last. There is a sharpness, an edge, a bite. And there is also an inimitable ability to make the reader–even the whitest girl with the blondest hair and the bluest eyes–feel connected to the life Als is describing from the vantage point of a big black man of the sort that terrifies many white, blonde, blue-eyed girls in elevators and elsewhere ... There aren’t many answers in these essays, but there are many questions. That’s how the best essays read: Querying everything–the battlements of a life lived. And that’s what Als does in reprise after reprise ... White Girls is no easy read, but then serious essays weren’t meant to be breezed through, they were meant to be ruminated over. These are those kind of essays, Als is that kind of writer.
