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Rating: 
Summary: Grand finale...not
Review: I think the ending of this book ruined it for me. I enjoyed the middle a lot and didn't want to put it down, but I feel the ending just contradicted everything in the worst way.
Rating: 
Summary: surprised at these reviews
Review: I thought this book was great. The writing was good and the story was good, and what else can I say? It gives you insight into life. He's a good storyteller.
Rating:
Summary: The Auto-Biography of an Ex-Coloured Man
Review: James Weldon Johnson was a man of many firsts. For me, this book was also a first. It was the first time that I had ever sat down with a book and not wanted to get up. I was thoroughly captivated by this fabulous piece of African-American literature.
Rating:
Summary: The Auto-Biography of an Ex-Coloured Man
Review: James Weldon Johnson was a man of many firsts. For me, this book was also a first. It was the first time that I had ever sat down with a book and not wanted to get up. I was thoroughly captivated by this fabulous piece of African-American literature.
Rating:
Summary: The Search for American Identity
Review: Johnson's novel travels through various African-American societies (New England, Jacksonville, New York City, the Black Belt) in a story of a mulatto caught between two opposing racial identities. The novel is an epic journey (emotionally and physically) of this African-American, who is light enough to "pass" into the white American dominating the turn-of-the century. The Ex-Coloured Man's personal struggles to reconcile his true private self with his public self in a divided and prejudiced society makes this novel an emotional and enlightening read. Johnson takes up the issue of WEB DuBois's double-consciousness, and gives it life in the form of this ambivalent protagonist.
Rating:
Summary: Soul-Stirring
Review: This is not the type of book that will grab you from the beginning and hold you until the end. This is the kind of book that when you sit down to think about it, you'll find that you are, in some instances, like the Ex-Coloured Man. I had to read this piece for a class. Upon cracking the binding, I was not impressesd. But, as I got deeper into the story, I was captivated. This is the type of work that makes you look at your life and wonder how you would respond in the same situations (and how you had responded in the past). While Johnson didn't give you dramatic build up that writers of today give, he gave an opportuinty for individual soul exploration. I believe that was the point he was trying to make. "Autobiography of An Ex-Coloured Man" was not the greatest work ever written, but is was one of the most thought-provoking and challenging.
Rating: 
Summary: Drags.
Review: This is one of the worst books I read in the past year. If it weren't for its place in history and its importance as the first first-person book written by an African-American author, I probably would've given it one star. The narrative style is painful, the plot feels meandering and silly, and it's just plain not worth reading. The narrator's "earnest" style starts to grate after about 30 pages, and from there on the book just goes bonking along to nowhere. The ending is terrible, as well.
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