To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. Her mother was unable to make use of her teaching qualifications due to mounting racism in the UK and her father had few prospects of getting a job that matched his qualifications. It’s her well-evoked earliest years which pull you into her story, though, built loosely around a family legend that considers her the resurrection of her murdered Nigerian grandmother, Patience, destined to fulfil a prophecy that she would ‘speak perfect English, live unfettered by men or children, work a man’a job and travel the world as a free spirit’. Despite the sad stories, at its heart, Cack-Handed is a comic routine and Yashere adds funny bits to every story. From what I’ve read, it does seem to be blurring now, especially as people of direct African heritage are outnumbering Caribbean heritage people in the UK now.

She explains that she thought that if she worked hard, played by the rules and proved her popularity, she would get her own show, get to make her own decisions about her programmes. From birth, Gina carried a similar birthmark - a sign that she was her grandmother's chosen heir, and would fulfil Patience's dreams. It was good reading it, plus my mother and her mother were good friends; it took me back to my own Nigerian-British upbringing, and I chuckled inwardly with some of her descriptions growing up, because my mother was identical to Gina's mother. If you aren't familiar with Gina Yashere, stop reading this review and go watch her thirty minute special on Netflix's show The Standups--the most laughter per minute stand up special I've seen in a while.

From birth, Gina carried a similar birthmark—a sign that she was her grandmother's chosen heir, and would fulfill Patience's dreams. After coming to comedy in the mid-1990s she encountered a different racism, feeling herself the victim of a ‘one on, one out’ mentality that restricted the best of the already limited opportunities to only one famous black comic at a time… and Lenny Henry had that sewn up. I wish Gina had developed more on the private fostering side when she was placed in foster care, because this issue of Black British history is still relatively unknown. She'll love Gina's Mom, possibly even finding a little of herself in there, particularly if she sacrificed for you and your siblings and placed enormous expectations on you.

There were tons of other relatable experiences, like her mother’s undying quest for her becoming doctor, hateful parental figures, hair disasters and familial expectations. A real shame that there is not the same opportunities here in the UK for black comedians to showcase their talent.

She has lead a very interesting life that's for sure but this memoir felt very much like book 1 and I'm not sure we are getting book 2. I won't explain too much because I don't want to spoil anything but her childhood was not that nice.

Oh this does sound good, especially as the author highlights those conflicts between people of Caribbean people African heritage. First is her mother, who takes the stereotypical strict African parent to extremes: her overprotective nature slipping into cruelty when she wouldn’t let young Gina hang out with friends.

Yashere was a telecoms, and then lift, engineer with a passion for clubbing before falling into - and in love with - stand-up.

I've always found her comedy hilarious and the times when her mum has been in an audience have added to her stories. Gina Yashere is daughter to Nigerian parents who arrived in the UK in the late 60s for better jobs and education. For me, this was not a noteworthy memoir, but I did enjoy Gina's narration because her vocalizations are always hysterical.I’ve wanted to read this book since I heard she wrote it as I’ve followed her career since she showed up with Amy Schumer on Last Comic Standing. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.