Betty Before X

I got Betty Before X by Ilyasah Shabazz and Renee Watson from the library after seeing it on a list somewhere. The book caught my attention because it’s the fictionalized story of Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X’s wife, as a child, written by their daughter and co-written by Renee Watson, an author I’ve enjoyed in the past. The story follows Betty, an 11-year-old in Detroit in 1945, through her journey to finding love and purpose.

This is another book I read a couple months ago, so I don’t remember tons about it anymore thanks to my terrible memory, but it was definitely an engaging story that kept me reading. I kept expecting it to tie into Malcolm X somehow, but the story just did a few years of her childhood/teen years and then ended before making the connection to her later years. But I really enjoyed the characters and story and liked getting a glimpse of this period of history.

Rating: * * (2/3 = Liked it)