Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

by Danielle Evans (Goodreads Author)

3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 · rating details · 1,185 ratings · 273 reviews

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self offers a bold new perspective on the experience of being young and African-American or mixed-race in modern-day America.

In each of her stories, Danielle Evans explores the non-white American experience with honesty, wisdom, and humor. They are striking in their emotional immediacy, based in a world where inequality is a reality, but

...more

Hardcover, 229 pages

Published September 23rd 2010 by Riverhead Hardcover (first published September 11th 2010)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans

2010's Best African American Literature

5th out of 24 books — 115 voters

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer

All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones

Great African American Short Story Collections

3rd out of 40 books — 17 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Nov 17, 2010 jo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, african-american

i found this book exceptional. do you remember when jhumpa lahiri debuted with Interpreter of Maladies and everyone went WHOA? Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self is that good, though i'll be surprised if everyone goes WHOA, because, let's face it, the readership for young African American female writers is different from the readership for young Asian American female writers. and by different i don't only mean different, but i mean smaller, something i invite all readers of this teensy ickl...more i found this book exceptional. do you remember when jhumpa lahiri debuted with Interpreter of Maladies and everyone went WHOA? Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self is that good, though i'll be surprised if everyone goes WHOA, because, let's face it, the readership for young African American female writers is different from the readership for young Asian American female writers. and by different i don't only mean different, but i mean smaller, something i invite all readers of this teensy ickle review to remedy immediately.

beside being WHOA-worthy, these two books have this in common: they pack a punch. danielle evans is less gentle about the punch than jhumpa lahiri. i read this book in a daze because i was tired, independently, and i hope to read it again sometime soon. but i was also dazed by how much these stories contain. young men and women navigating the cusp of adulthood (a process that may and often does take many more years than the designated number), with few and inadequate tools to do so, in a world they have a dated code to understand, and so so alone.

yet, aren't we all? who are the guides of our transition from childhood into adulthood? and the guides of our transition from, say, being 20 to being 40? and who are the guides of our transition from being 40 to being 70? you'd figure that, this process being, literally, a matter of life and death, we would have built a system of chaperoning, mentoring, holding, advising -- also a system in which there is room for people to rest, take long breaks, check out for a bit, find their 20s feet or their 40s feet or their 70s feets.

instead, all we have as guides, most often, is tv shows. really. that's it. tv shows. we are not only alone but lied to, everyday.

but i'm getting sidetracked. danielle evans doesn't mention (that i remember) tv shows, but she does bring up, over and over and with stunningly insight and subtlety, how woefully unprepared we all are to face the world.

this book is significantly devoid of parents. i don't think evans means to say that most parents are bad parents, but i do think she means to tell us that, often, they just don't or can't keep up (cuz no one can).

finally, a comment on the title. unlike the vast majority of short story collections, the title here does not come from any of the short stories, but from a poem by danna kate rushin , a black feminist poet. the poem is called "The Bridge Poem" and if you read it in its entirely (and i hope you will) you will see that it's about translating -- people to people, cultures to cultures -- and being really, really tired of doing so. this is not a recent poem (i'm going to guess it was written in the 80s). following a small section of it in the epigram page there are two lines by audre lorde, another feminist black poet, that go: "I do not believe our wants/have made all our lies holy."

at first, since i didn't remember who rushin is, i read the excerpt from her poem as the tired lamentation of a woman who has to deal with clueless men. but no, this is the tired lamentation of a woman who has to deal with clueless everyone. maybe the mysterious lines from the lorde poem are also about excuses for not being willing to engage in the hard work of interpreting and understanding life.

and this is how, finally, i read both epigrams together. as if evans, this young black feminist who writes with equal compassion about men and women, were picking up the slack and giving these old (i'm not talking about age) and valiant warriors a break and a spell. i hear her saying, "hey guys, you can get a spot of rest now. let me pick up the battle. i'm young and the world has changed. hey, it has not changed much for the better, but maybe it has changed enough that y'all can rest and let me carry on your work. i feel fresh and i feel equipped. plus, quite honestly, i'm a heck of a writer."

(less)

15 likes · like · see review

Nov 02, 2010 Kathrina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-fiction, short-story-collections, african-american

Danielle Evans is like a breath of fresh air in the current offerings of short fiction. Her stories are in the here and now, told by your friends and neighbors whose voices are rarely heard. Evans has an exquisite talent at evoking the true essence of a character with just a few swift strokes. A few of the later stories (Jellyfish, Wherever You Go) tend to bog down in an overwritten explanation of an extremely grafted family tree, reading more like a diary entry than prose, but her best stories...more Danielle Evans is like a breath of fresh air in the current offerings of short fiction. Her stories are in the here and now, told by your friends and neighbors whose voices are rarely heard. Evans has an exquisite talent at evoking the true essence of a character with just a few swift strokes. A few of the later stories (Jellyfish, Wherever You Go) tend to bog down in an overwritten explanation of an extremely grafted family tree, reading more like a diary entry than prose, but her best stories avoid telling the reader too much, and just get on with telling the story. My favorites begin the collection, including Virgins, Snakes, Harvest, and Someone Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere to Go.
Particularly, Harvest was thought-provoking, as well as tender and emotionally pitch-perfect. The narrator is a black college student; her white roommate has been making extra cash selling her eggs to a fertility clinic. Juxtaposing her experience with the narrator's unexpected pregnancy provides an intriguing perspective on racial prejudice and cultural attitudes towards the value of human life. Evans' writing is so stunning, both in tackling this unique construct, and in her swift and beautiful prose styling, I've included a favorite passage that really shows off her talent (the narrator and her friend wait together in the lobby of an abortion clinic):
Laura looked panicked and terrified, too, mesmerized by the tacky not-quite-tragedy of the waiting room. I imagined (this is what we did with Laura then: we never asked, we imagined) the doctor's office she'd visited to be screened and tested and have her eggs removed. I imagined it blue, with soft music in the background and fresh flowers on the waiting-room table, next to the New Yorker. I imagined people smiled more and struck up conversation easily. The girls there to donate would feel kinship with Laura, and if the women there to receive were inclined to be jealous of her youth and beauty and fertility, their jealousy would recede once they realized they could afford to buy her.

Stunning stuff, and I hope more is to come.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Nov 06, 2010 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: hell-yeah

If you, like me, have been picking books up for weeks, starting them & realizing about 30 pages that you do not care whatsoever about what is going on (Constant Gardener I am looking in your direction), perhaps you should give this book a try. It is scrumptious and excellent and has renewed my faith in the printed word. Thank you, Danielle Evans. Now hurry up and write some more stuff, please.

7 likes · like · see review

Sep 15, 2011 Monica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, genrex

4.5 really. Danielle Evans pushed me through my current sad pattern with short fiction collections. Usually I start out loving them and then I'm so exhausted keeping up with all of the new characters and all the new empathy that I'm ready to give up half way through.

Not so here. Evans writes about (mostly) young black women with brains and agency and fully realized characters. Everyone felt fascinating and familiar from paragraph one.

Seriously, she is really talented. I'll definitely be reading...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 04, 2013 frangible-spiderlily rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, five-star, fantastic, and-the-plot-thickens, amazing-prose

This was absolutely amazing.

Evans has a way of wrapping up each story so that it feels completed, but you still wish for more of the characters. Still, before you have time to mourn over your loss she whirls you right into the next one.

Despite the various changes in tense and 1st/2nd/3rd person switches, the stories somehow felt, connected. Like they instinctively beloged together, in the same novel, side by side as they were.

The prose was fantastic. Even though some of the stories didn't end on...more

like · see review

Jul 20, 2012 Mallory rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm always impressed when I find a short story writer who is able to craft characters who have distinct voices, but newcomer Danielle Evans creates a wide range of characters who sound and feel different, which is the main reason I enjoyed her writing so much.

This is one of those books that surprises you. It's beautiful and bold, heartbreaking and funny, peppered with wonderful lines, beautiful images and a sense of humor which is both clever and occasionally dark.

I found out about this book wh...more

like · see review

May 05, 2012 Hilary rated it 2 of 5 stars

Suffocate is a collection of short stories about the Black experience in America. Every story dealt with a sensitive and taboo subject (especially within the African American community). Virginity, abortion, and post traumatic stress disorder are just a few of the subjects Suffocate discusses.

Some of the stories (Snakes, Harvest, Someone Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere to Go), are spectacular. As with most short stories, you are left with a sense of longing. You're left wanting more. You NEED...more Suffocate is a collection of short stories about the Black experience in America. Every story dealt with a sensitive and taboo subject (especially within the African American community). Virginity, abortion, and post traumatic stress disorder are just a few of the subjects Suffocate discusses.

Some of the stories (Snakes, Harvest, Someone Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere to Go), are spectacular. As with most short stories, you are left with a sense of longing. You're left wanting more. You NEED to know how the character that you fell in love with ends up. However these stories left you with just enough. You're able to fill in the blanks and make up your own ending (and chile with my vivid imagination I need a book club ASAP).

On the other hand, the other stories were less than desirable. Not only were the endings cliffhangers, umm they really didnt have a clear beginning. Let's see if I can explain this better.....

Ok imagine after a stressful week at work all you want to do on Saturday is chill on your couch and watch movies. You have everything in place Netflixawineacomfy sweatsaThe first movie you watch is the BOMB! Then you pick another movie (that Netflix "suggests" of course), but something is wrong with the stream. It starts in the middle of the movie. Being optimistic (I mean the Netflix gods did say you would like this movie), you continue to watch the movie. After about 45 minutes, you are really getting into the movie. You've figured out the plot (or so you think) and can't wait to see how it's going to end. And then you get the dreaded "We're sorry you've lost connection. Would you like to try again?"

Yeah so the point of that illustration (I told ya I have a vivid imagination): Suffocate (other than the afore mentioned septacular stories) is pretty much like that bad movie that messed up your movie night. There isn't a beginning. There isnt an ending. There is just enough of a "story" to wet your appetite and then leave you hanging.

Sooooooo *in Kevin Hart's daughters voice* who would I recommend this book to? Anyone who has a short attention span and can never seem to finish a book. If you make it to the middle of a book and then get distracted by life, or if you take years to finish a book than Suffocate is the book for you.(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Jul 22, 2011 Rita Reinhardt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Standing right here in my B-Girl stance, got my hands on my hips like I don’t care! Who's bad? What a collection of throwbacks, memories and tales similar our everyday lives - the life we have allowed to become a surrounding surface of familiarity. When first introduced to before you suffocate your own fool self I was less than impressed, however I picked up this collection and eventually found myself intrigued. Honest Review: Some of the stories are great! While others left me underwhelmed. Vir...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 21, 2011 Tamara rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was excited to read this after coming across an AV Club Review calling it “a remarkable short-story collection in a good year for short-story collections.” But what made me especially eager to read it was something the reviewer said that didn’t sit right with me: "The biggest issue with Suffocate is that nearly every story features a similar protagonist. Evans writes this protagonist—a young African-American or mixed-race woman who’s trapped between her past and a more promising future—extreme...more I was excited to read this after coming across an AV Club Review calling it “a remarkable short-story collection in a good year for short-story collections.” But what made me especially eager to read it was something the reviewer said that didn’t sit right with me: "The biggest issue with Suffocate is that nearly every story features a similar protagonist. Evans writes this protagonist—a young African-American or mixed-race woman who’s trapped between her past and a more promising future—extremely well, but when the first three stories all center on basic variations of the type, it leads to diminishing returns. Evans does feature a handful of stories with different protagonists, including a young man recently returned from Iraq and in over his head with an old girlfriend, but she’s right back to her comfort zone in the next story."

I thought about this the whole time I read the collection. Without giving anything away, because I highly recommend the book (and to be fair, so did the AV Club), here is a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the protagonists :

“Virgins” - a lower-middle class teenage girl from a single parent home in Mount Vernon, NY

“Snakes” - a bi-racial tween visiting her wealthy white maternal grandmother in Florida while her anthropologist parents are doing field work in Brazil

“Harvest” - a middle-class black Columbia student

“Someone Ought to Tell Her There’s Nowhere to Go” - a black male Iraq vet on Honorable Discharge

“The King of a Vast Empire” - a twenty something black male bookstore employee in Northern Virginia

“Jellyfish” - a twentysomething black female sculptor who is also bisexual and lives in NYC

“Wherever You Go, There You Are” - a twentysomething black female PhD student in Delaware

“Robert E. Lee is Dead” - a young black teenage girl in Virginia, on the cusp of graduating as her school’s Valedictorian.

GOD EVANS HAVE YOU NO IMAGINATION? Here’s the thing. Calling these protagonists “similar” because they share a few census categories does a disservice to the author’s gift for creating believably three-dimensional characters with unique challenges and back-stories. It also fails to acknowledge the vast differences between these characters that have nothing to do with their shared race or gender. Moreover, calling these characters “similar” says more about a given reader’s perspective than it does about this particular author’s skills, since the reader is betraying an unwillingness to recognize that for every young black or bi-racial woman or man there is a multitude of stories about class, gender, identity, sexuality, family, et cetera. Evans does a beautiful job telling some of those stories but there are so, so more of them to tell.

When I reread the AV Club review after finishing the book, I was reminded of Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk on “The Danger of a Single Story,” in which she challenged our culture’s willingness to reduce certain groups’ experiences to a single narrative. Where Adichie was trying primarily to challenge our “single story” of African poverty, the beauty of her speech is that it has broad applications. When someone finds himself saying “wait, ANOTHER black woman? I guess I can look past it” when reading each of Evans’ stories, it tells me that he thinks one black woman’s story would have been enough to cover them all. And that, to me, is even more reason to believe that we need to tell and hear even more.
(less)

6 likes · like · see review

Feb 22, 2011 Alex Templeton rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's true that a good short story collection will rarely, if ever, get as much attention as novels. That leads me to hearing about more novels, and therefore reading more novels. Fortunately, I heard about this well-received collection, and was therefore reminded of the great pleasure a good short story can bring. Each of these stories featured a young African-American struggling with identity and sense of self, but I never felt like I was reading the same story over again. The opening story, "V...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 29, 2010 Rebekah ODell rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the kind of debut collection that I suspect will make Danielle Evans much buzzed-about! (Not really a surprise for a writer published in The Paris Review.)

Evan’s eight stories center on motifs of isolation, loss, failed and failing relationships, alienated families, racial tension, and growing up. Her voice is fresh, startling, and natural. The stories feel effortless.

In my favorite story (and the longest), ”Snakes”, Tara is sent to spend the summer in Florida with her estranged grandmot...more

like · see review

Dec 19, 2010 Candace rated it 4 of 5 stars

First, I hate short stories. Had I known when I picked this book up that it was a collection of short stories, I never would have done so. I read the second story thinking that it was the second chapter and struggled to find some kind of common thread linking it to the first "chapter". Never happened. Naturally. However, having said all this, I found that I couldn't put this book down.

I chose this book randomly because the title spoke to me. As a Parisian-dwelling-native-of-Virginia (you can tak...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 11, 2010 Jodi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-read, shortstories

Sometimes when I read short story collections I try to figure out what the author’s thing is. By thing I mean the big issue they address in their writing. While it’s easy to extrapolate from there that it’s the big issue the author him or herself is dealing with in his/her own life, I try not to make that assumptive leap.
For instance, I always thing of Mary Gaitskill’s thing as trying to reconcile sexuality with intelligence; Raymond Carver is sensitive men who cope with their sensitivity by dri...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 09, 2010 Jenny Shank rated it 4 of 5 stars

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedconte...

Book review: 'Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self' by Danielle Evans

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, October 3, 2010

By JENNY SHANK / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Jenny Shank's first novel, The Ringer, will be published in March. She is the books editor of NewWest.Net.

Danielle Evans' debut story collection examines the lives of young black people in contemporary America and does so with a ringing authenticity in eight moving, funny and insightfu...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 03, 2010 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am a fan of short stories and the eight stories in this collection are some of the best that I have read lately. This debut collection of stories focuses on young African-American and mixed-race women who are dealing with the insecurities of growing up and the competing pressures of racial attitudes and prejudices and dysfunctional families. While race is an important aspect of each short story, the themes of problems within families, the search for love, and the need to belong apply equally t...more

like · see review

Sep 17, 2010 Nomi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

These short stories told with grace and humor mostly deal with young African American female characters coming of age during high school and college. Particularly strong is the story "Snakes" about a biracial young woman recalling the time she was sent to live with her racist white grandmother for the summer, as is the intriguingly titled "Harvest" about white college girls making lots of money selling their coveted eggs while the story's African American narrator finds out she is pregnant. Evan...more

like · see review

Oct 07, 2012 Krista rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthology, contemporary

This is a collection of short stories. I didn't realize that at first so I was disoriented when I started the second chapter and all of the characters were different, but then I realized it says "stories" on the front cover, whoops! Unsurprisingly, I liked some of the stories better than others. Snakes and Robert E. Lee Is Dead were my favorites. Jellyfish was my least favorite because I felt like it didn't end so much as stop, but maybe I just didn't "get" that one. All eight stories were well...more

like · see review

Nov 20, 2011 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

I just don't think I'm a short story person. I'm sure these stories are good, but for the most part I didn't enjoy them. Partly because they tend to be rather dark, as short stories often are, and partly because I didn't feel that ring of truth or recognition in many of them. I really enjoyed the first story, about two teenage girls trying to figure out their place with men and boys. There were some very real-feeling moments, and even though I wouldn't call it a happy story, it made sense to me....more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 13, 2012 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a very character-driven collection of short stories that I found, for the most part, interesting and was glad I read. As with most short story collections (at least for me), it can be kind of hit-or-miss, and there were definitely a few stories where I either thought "huh?" (i.e. I just completely missed the point) or just did not enjoy very much. But there were definitely some that made you think.

I'd describe the general theme to be flawed-but-intriguing people making mistakes, and the...more

like · see review

May 16, 2011 Uzzie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Evans's collection is refreshing--it reminds me of how we at times become our own" worst enemies." This doesn't necessarly mean we revel in self-destruction but that we often make choices and haven't begun to truly fathom the consequences of said choices. After I get pass the first predictable story, the others hold my interest, forcing me to sympathize and empathize with the characters and the many seemingly asphxiating choices they make for themselves and those around them. The writing is clea...more

like · see review

Mar 30, 2011 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I can't review this book without offering the disclaimer that the author went to my middle school and high school, and I briefly knew her. It was directly because of that fact that I found her stories particularly powerful and thought-provoking, even as I may have disagreed at times about how she presented things. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone interested in thinking about race and socioeconomic class through the lens of a fiction-writer.

Overall, I did not love the writing style - the...more

like · see review

Sep 23, 2011 Sonia Reppe rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: shortstories

My favorite stories were Snakes and Harvest. The writing is really good but the tone is a little too cynical for me. You might argue that Evans is just being realistic, and I like realism, don't I? Yes, and I don't shy away from realism that makes you squirm a little when you see your own shortcomings, mistakes and/or misbehavior mirrored by the characters. But with realism you could take your characters down the redemptful (redemptive?) road or leave them in a state of hopelessness which I thin...more

like · see review

Sep 05, 2011 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction

To say that this is a collection of short stories about "young and African-American or mixedrace in modern day America", as the dust cover does, is to seriously underestimate and limit the scope of this work. This is a book about individuality, about growing up, about families, about disappointment, about being different, about being left behind, about leaving others behind -- in short, this is a book about life, applicable to every race, creed and color.

The author has an amazing skill in portra...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 10, 2011 Nakia White rated it 3 of 5 stars

What can one say about a collection of short stories, each one of them delicious enough to hope that they never end? I almost feel bad for only givng this book 3.5 stars (I gave the extra .5 on Visual Bookself, but GoodReads and Shelfari won't allow for that...I wonder why). The only reason it didnt recieve a perfect score of 5? I didnt want any of the stories to end so soon, if that makes any sense. These stories should be novels!

I especially loved "Virgins", the story of two teen girls in New...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 09, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: jan-feb-2011

The arrival in publishing of Danielle Evans, a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop who is still in her 20s, has been anticipated with the same enthusiasm that sports phenoms are welcomed into the majors. And with good reason. The author's voice, "brave the way you are when you don't know what you have to lose" (NY Times Book Review), never lets her laser focus stray from the challenges of growing up in the 21st century—even if she tends, occasionally, to lead the reader instead of relying on h...more

like · see review

Jan 27, 2012 Stacy rated it 4 of 5 stars

the title itself evokes a story of its own, a saying, I heard a few times growing up from the neighborhood elders as I dangled from the ledge of a house, tree limb or a diving board. these 8 stories are perfectly pitched, giving just enough to appease your appetite, though you want to gorge & gorge until you burst like fireworks. My favorites were "Snakes", "Someone Ought to Tell Her...", "JellyFish" and "Robert E. Lee Is Dead". Evans voice has a plain-telling that catches your attention &...more

like · see review

Jul 18, 2011 Merre rated it 4 of 5 stars

This collection of stories was riveting, interesting, and thought provoking. Rarely have I found authors who speak of the variety, and complexity that is the African American experience. I found a piece of myself in every one of the protagonists. I think that's what so amazing about these stories, I was able to identify on so many different levels, especially as an African American female who is the same age as the author. We are living in changing times and the stories reflect that and the conf...more

like · see review

Apr 26, 2012 Tanya Patrice rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, 2011-award-winners

4.5 - so rounding up.

What an AMAZING short story collection! I actually meant to return this book to the library unread because I was a bit burnt out on short-stories after reading We Others, After the Apocalypse & Teeth back to back. But while waiting somewhere or another, I cracked this book and read the 1st story - Virgins ... I was blown away and kept reading. Every single story is worth reading - even the 2 that seemed a bit unfinished to me, Jellyfish & Wherever You Go There You Ar...more

like · see review

Oct 17, 2010 Betsy rated it 4 of 5 stars

The voice or perspective of these eight short stories is what I found most eye-opening and compelling. It's the voice of someone very different than me - a young black woman sharing stories about her childhood, teen-age years and early adulthood - mostly about situations that I never experienced or ever could but also about familiar issues like "white flight" and "the achievement gap" viewed from an unfamiliar vantage point, one very different than mine.

One story is about a young mixed race New...more

like · see review

Feb 02, 2011 Dusky Literati rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011

Danielle Evans gives us an amazing debut with eight short stories which mainly focus on the experiences of African-American women. The first story is “Virgins,” which was initially published in the 2007 Paris Review, and follows two friends who have differing points of view about the right way to lose your virginity. However, one girl’s right way puts her in a dangerous situation.

The story that stayed with me the most was “Snakes,” where Tara, a bi-racial teen, is sent to visit with her white gr...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Fiction Lover's B...: * Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, by Danielle Evans	2	2	May 13, 2013 01:44pm

combine
Other Editions (5)

More editions...

Genres

Short Stories

123 users

Cultural > African American

22 users

Adult

11 users

Contemporary

8 users

Race

7 users

Book Club

7 users

American > African American Literature

6 users

Adult Fiction

5 users

Literary Fiction

4 users

Anthologies

4 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Danielle Evans

If you have gotten here by accident, I am not the Danielle Evans who won Americas Next Top Model, Danielle Evans the martial arts champion, Danielle Evans the photographer, or any of the other people who share my surprisingly popular name. I am a fiction writer and professor of creative writing and literature. My work has appeared in magazines including The Paris Review, A Public Space, Callaloo,...more

More about Danielle Evans...

Books by Danielle Evans

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Before You Suffoc...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
avg rating	preview: Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self Goodreads rating: 3.82 (1185 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7840634-before-you-suffocate-your-own-fool-self?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348725993l/7840634.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7840634-before-you-suffocate-your-own-fool-self?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans[/url]

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website