Sonny's Blues
4 stars
If you read just one story from this read Sonny's Blues. It is a beautiful depiction of real life in Harlem, and contains one of the most affecting representations of the power of music I have ever read. The other stories are good, though sometimes feel too short, but in a way the abrupt endings represent what the struggle with race can do to people like Baldwin's characters, and yet they are always about more than race. The one about Jaime is brutal though.