Black Girl, No Magic: reflections on race and respectability

In a complex world, who is allowed to be complicated? Who is entitled to a messy life full of triumphs, mistakes and tedium?

Until recently, not Black women.

Kimberly McIntosh has lived a full life, with a loving family, messy friendships, mind-expanding travel and all-night parties. She’s also spent that life wondering why such opportunities aren’t always available to people who look like her.

Stemming from years of social policy research and campaign work, this essay collection brings together all that Kimberly has learned; whether that’s dismantling the myth of social mobility for those who toe the line, to understanding why her teenage Facebook posts are quite so cringe. In it, she uses her own experiences to reveal how systematic injustice impacts us all, from the pressure of nuclear families, to enduring toxic friendships, to how painful it can be to watch Love Island.

Perfect for fans of Slay In Your Lane, Trick Mirror, and Bad Feminist, this dazzling debut collection brilliantly melds the personal and political to not only tell the story of a life, but what that life might teach us.

'This book is a glowing achievement by one of the best essayists of her generation' Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff

‘Witty, fresh and full of life’ Liv Little

‘I can’t recommend more highly… it’s one of those books that I just want to press in the hands of everybody’ Damian Barr, Literary Salon Podcast