We Are Not Like Them

We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
Read April 2023 - Zoom Reading Circle

Wow, this is quite a book.  It provides powerful commentary on race through the voices of two women, lifelong best friends. Jen is white, daughter of a rough and tumble single mom, did not go to college and is married to a Philadelphia cop, Kevin.  Riley (born Leroya) is black, college educated, and a rising star Philadelphia television journalist who comes from a large and loving family.  The book opens with a police shooting of an unarmed black teenager, by Jen’s husband and his partner.  As the racial implications of that shooting reverberate through the city, the two friends find their friendship has larger cracks in it than they perhaps realized. 

This book is written in both their voices, which I found quite powerful. I went into the book assuming I would be staunchly on one side and yet found that the voice for each character was compelling in its anguish, love, fear and loss.  This book really resonated with me as a slow dissolution of a long-time much-treasured friendship... with someone who maybe you can’t really be that kind of friend with after all?  What makes friendship possible?  Or really, what finally makes friendship IMpossible.  At what point do bone-deep differences finally break something apart for good. 

I have my own thoughts about this kind of thing since a friendship that was so vital to me eroded and then finally disappeared during the pandemic.  Not the same, but the same in some ways. I could really feel for Jen and her complete lack of understanding about why there was this distance.  And I could completely feel Riley’s anger when Jen was oblivious about the depth of the problem and the fact that things would never just ‘go back to normal’.  The world (and they) had changed.  

I also thought the book did a great job of challenging some cliched stereotypes... Jen, the white girl has the hard-scrabble Mom who didn’t do such a great job of raising her - which led to Jen finding comfort, and a family she could consider her own, in Riley’s family.  Riley grew up in a loving and stable home filled with reminders and admonitions to ‘be all that you were born to be’ - with a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. on the wall and stories of personal pain from systemic racism both shared and hidden. Riley fought against being called ‘uppity’ for her (and her family’s) determination that she would go to college and succeed. In spite of her success, her parents are still facing foreclosure on their home that has been in the family for generations - due mostly to tax increases brought on by white flight from the city to the suburbs.  So many themes of systemic racism and how it truly impacts lives throughout this book.  

The two authors, Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, are also white and black and so brought  such heart to the voices of Jen and Riley.  I really appreciated this book so much... I learned from it, enjoyed it, and am excited to see these two authors have another book coming out soon.  I plan to read it for sure.  The combination of the authors voices and perspectives provides a great reading experience.

Now that I have finished it I will say that I can’t stop thinking about this book.  It was so good.  The friendship may not dissolve but it certainly leaves things open that the future will look different in many ways.  Nothing stays the same... this we know.  And in many cases, even if it hurts, it is for the best.  

Our Book Club rated it a 3.9.   I would rate it a 4 to a 4.5

Here are some of my highlights from this book...

That's the problem. I don't have the words. It's hard to pinpoint, let alone describe exactly what's going on between us - this weird, unspoken rift. The longer we go without talking, the stranger it all feels, like we're in an invisible fight and neither of us understands the rules. 

The longer you let something go, the easier it is to stay silent, and the silence is where the resentment starts to fester and rot. 

It's a paradox, loving someone precisely because you know them so well, inside and out, and at the same time nursing a tiny fantasy that they can be different in the specific ways you want them to be. 

Maybe it's what we all want from the people we love: to be seen for exactly who we are. It was a simple realization, so why did it feel like such a miracle?

Even though she's still the first person I want to tell when something good or happy happens, that's not where we are right now. I'm still not sure whether we'll ever get back to that exact place. 

And the two quotes at the beginning of the book really struck me as well... 

The only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people that are better than you are - not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous and more forgiving - and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad - or good - it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all.  But the best, as well.  

            A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

Maybe she and I failed each other by allowing each other the freedom to be ourselves, and maybe that was the inevitable consequence of true friendship. 

            Trouble, Kate Christenson