Praise for Racebook:“Poetic and insightful . . . This is a must-read.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review“Racebook’s essays are filled with nostalgic gaming references, musings on the current state of the internet, social media follies, and a surprising amount of German. Onyebuchi uses his fascinating life story as the backbone for this book, and readers learn as much about his background as they do about how the internet has changed and grown. Recommended for readers who want to examine the internet as it was, is, and will be, and how one person’s unique perspective can elucidate universal truths.”—Booklist, starred review“Wide-ranging . . . A trenchant essay collection about race and identity online . . . Onyebuchi’s cultural vocabulary is impressive, weaving together references to, among others, Graham Greene, Nas, and Walter Mosley . . . this is a lively and astute read.”—Kirkus Reviews“Beginning with the adulation of Black cosplayers seizing physical and intellectual properties long coded as white spaces, [Onyebuchi] writes a memoir that contemplates his life online . . . There is personal history throughout, but the essays are global reflections on internet culture more than traditional memoir. Onyebuchi captures several universal moments of a generation growing up online but pushes the narrative further to encompass how it intersected with his offline world.”—Library Journal“Thought-provoking and eclectic cultural criticism . . . a feast of cultural references and a deeply considered analysis of who we are on the Internet and how race plays into the equation.”—Carol Caley, Shelf Awareness“We are in the best, most absolute trouble, y’all, because Tochi Onyebuchi writes as well as he understands the internet, which means he writes as well as humans run from accountable desire. Racebook is absolutely singular in the history of book-making, and the love shown to Black folks and our internet here is as textured as anything Morrison made. We are in trouble, the best, most uprooting trouble, and I am thankful.”—Kiese Laymon, bestselling author of Long Division and Heavy“A riotous history of the internet from a nostalgic fan and passionate critic. Tochi Onyebuchi knows that when you enter a world that turns friends into followers, and authenticity into performance, speaking the truth is the only way out. He does it beautifully in this memoir-in-essays, which looks at the pressure of data capitalism on our inner lives and future identities.”—Laila Lalami, author of The Dream Hotel“Starkly original, provocative and brilliantly executed, Racebook warrants our undivided attention. Onyebuchi is a sage observer of this fractured moment and among the internet's keenest interlocutors.”—Jelani Cobb, author of Three or More is a Riot and New Yorker Staff Writer“A love letter to the broken internet: Onyebuchi's prose glitters and his insights cut in this smart tour through the key junctures at which the internet's terrible promise and peril revealed themselves.”—Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification and Red Team Blues“A masterful (auto)biography of imaginative labor in the digital age, spanning his own family histories, Pokémon Go, the Internet’s capacity for psychic injury, Palestine, multiplayer videogames, virtual reality, blogs, global instability and the online social movements they’ve birthed, Tochi Onyebuchi reveals just how thin the veil is between the lives we live IRL and our online worlds. In eleven prodigious essays, Racebook returns us to those early years of the Internet, where everything seemed possible: community, belonging, ways to survive and thrive. Or as he writes, “to take the Internet seriously, is to recognize the parts of it that don’t hurt.” An audit of the faces we project and the reflection the Internet draws of us, Onyebuchi offers a trenchant account of where we’ve been, alongside a roadmap of possibility for where we might go.”—Hafizah Augustus Geter, author of The Black PeriodPraise for Tochi Onyebuchi:“Onyebuchi’s voice work is magnificent, sharp and whipping.”—New York Times, on Riot Baby“Stunningly original, brutal, and electric. Onyebuchi’s prose scorches.”—R. F. Kuang, on Riot Baby“Tochi Onyebuchi’s searing prose is an emotional journey in every sentence.”—Gizmodo on Goliath
