"Born a Crime" is an autobiographical novel by the African standup comedian Trevor Noah. It was highly recommended to me by two of my friends. Incidentally, one of them had seen his standup shows and was a fan before he read his book while the other only had a fleeting idea who he was.

I also had very high expectations from the book because of the recommendations and also because I have this biased belief that most comedians are extremely smart individuals and so, their books ought to be really witty and funny and good.

"Born a Crime" does give a sneak peek into what it is like living in Africa in the 80s and 90s. And although I can image culture shock to people living in the West, it didn't seem too far our from what is experienced in the slums of Mumbai or some rural areas in India.

The book itself should have been titled "Queen Noah" , just like "King Richard" (the movie about Serena and Venus Williams' father) as it showed the resilience, defiance and irreverence of a single African woman who dares to dream in a difficult world.

The book was fun to listen as an Audiobooks because Trevor does some amazing African accents, but other than that, his jokes themselves aren't as funny.

My favourite line in the whole book was "...Human beings like to laugh. And lucky for me, pretty girls are human beings".