Assembly was a sobering read and felt very personal to me. Growing up black with immigrant parents, much of the inner dialogue felt very familiar. Assimilation, being told to “work harder, exceed expectations. But also be invisible.” Natasha writes the experience many black women face with such precision. It’s intelligent and incredibly impactful. I implore everyone to read this book.

Natasha Brown manages to state obviously and with crystal-clear conviction the vast, infuriating injustices which perpetuate and depend on Britain's colonial roots. This reminded me of Kim Jiyoung Born 1982, in the way it so curtly and fantastically summarises and highlights societal oppression. Beautifully written, enraging, urgent.

This is very short but quite powerful account of a young British black woman (unnamed) who is reviewing her life after a diagnosis of cancer for which she has refused treatment. She has battled racism in many forms some of which are quite shocking, but she has got herself a good education and has broken through the glass ceiling. She has also nabbed herself a privileged rich white boyfriend. But what does she really want?

This is a short book that tackles important issues such as sexism, racism and sexual harassment. The writing style wasn't my cup of tea at all, which made the reading experience a bit more complicated for me. I feel I didn't understand what was happening in the book, I felt detached from it despite being engaged in the reading. Does it make sense??

Having seen the author at an event, I decided I’d read her novel/novella. She’d described it as experimental which immediately made me think, ‘I might not like this but why not read something different?’ This is certainly different to my normal fare of reading. Page 1 features no speak marks to delineate speech and a cuss word. Ugh! I kept going. I understand the conceit: the short, unstructured pieces are assembled, by the end, to produce a character portrait/sketch of our main character in the midst of white, male, rich Englishness. Our character’s dilemma is ultimately very simple: she’s fed up of being an outsider for 1) being female and 2) being an ethnic minority and needs to decide - to fight the system or give up. I didn’t buy her choice even though our main character thinks it’s the bravest one - she’s given up hope. It’s as if she’s saying that the sexism and the racism she’s experienced cannot ever be eradicated. I disagree and I choose to hope that we can all learn to be less sexist and less racist, even if it is one tiny step at a time.