Cack-Handed: A Memoir

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Live, she progressed quickly through both the black and the white circuits, earning a good wage in the first and broadening her craft in the second. An incident that highlights racist attitudes at the time really poignantly is the following: when Gina was 9 years old she happened to be leaning on a car when a grown man's voice was heard: 'Get the fuck off my car, you black bastard!

I never even heard of her until I seen her on the CBS hit series Bob <3 Abishola, a show she co-created. 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. Gina Yashere is daughter to Nigerian parents who arrived in the UK in the late 60s for better jobs and education.

I've always found her comedy hilarious and the times when her mum has been in an audience have added to her stories. I also got reminded of funny little details most of us have now probably forgotten, such as the removable cassette-players people used to have in their cars and take out with them for fear of theft!

She talks about the gender discrimination of breaking into a traditional male-dominated career as an engineer and how that all heralded her leaving for the uncertainty of the entertainment industry. We see the first twenty-five years of the author's life growing up in London, England, where racism was at the forefront of everything.For me, this was not a noteworthy memoir, but I did enjoy Gina's narration because her vocalizations are always hysterical.

She grew up in the poorer parts of London, raised with her siblings by a single mother who emigrated from Nigeria. 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.From birth, Gina carried a similar birthmark—a sign that she was her grandmother’s chosen heir, and would fulfill Patience’s dreams. I purchased the book because I was interested in learning about her comedy career but after finishing the book it only covered the first few years of it, that said I actually enjoyed reading about her early life and experiences a lot more than the comedy section. I'm happy that Gina has found her success across the pond, as she has put in a lot of work to get there. Definitely loved it and a must read for people centering queer/Black voices and/or people who love memoirs. The memoir is about the history of the author's life and what it was like growing up as the daughter of two Nigerian immigrants in the U.