Review of Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama by Alexis Okeowo

Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama by Alexis Okeowo (2025). Published by Henry Holt and Co.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

Applying to jobs in 2025 genuinely felt like an extreme sport, so when I was applying to them, I felt like I was going a little bit insane. I needed a creative outlet beyond my own personal creative writing, so the blog, reading, and watching movies was one of the few ways I managed to feel like myself during this time. And as someone who largely blogs about the books I’m reading, it means I also accumulate advance copies.

I try not to accept too many physical advance copies because I feel like they’re a waste of my limited space and resources in general. Physical copies are harder to carry around when I’m traveling, and my Kindle is always a much better alternative. I do wonder when my Kindle is finally going to give out on me though, as I’ve officially been using it for over ten years.

Blessings and Disasters was one of the advance copies I was sitting on for a while before I got to it. Sometimes I try to go in chronological order in stead of vibes when it comes to my advance copies, especially as I have deadlines to meet on when I get these reviews out. Publishers don’t set the deadline, but I personally prefer to get them out on the day of release for maximum SEO exposure.

It took me a while to get through Blessings and Disasters though because a lot of the information in it was brand new. I knew very little about Alabama, which is why I wanted to read this in the first place.

Let’s get into the review before I start spoiling my thoughts early on!

The story of Alabama, told through personal reflections, its cultural history, and the politics and economic reality of the state.

This is a nonfiction book that weaves together many different strands throughout its pages. On one hand, Okeowo, who was raised in Alabama, is the daughter of African immigrants who happened to land here for their education. Her parents both met in Alabama after coming from Nigeria to pursue higher degrees, and then, after leaving for some brief time, ended up coming back to the state with their kids.

We see a lot of Okeowo’s personal history in this book, which is a good thing—Alabama is a part of her story, and the people she interacts and engages with on a daily basis are a part of the story of Alabama. We can see throughout the book how Alabama shapes people into who they are, which is a different facet of the book as well.

What I mean by that, as it might lack clarity when you read it like that, is that Okeowo does little profiles on other people who are also from Alabama alongside with the cultural, political, and economic history of the state. For example, in the first chapter she goes into the history of the Creek people who lived in Alabama.

While some Creeks, who were mixed, managed to become wealthier than their counterparts who were looked down upon by white Americans, the story of the Creeks in Alabama is a tragedy. I won’t go into detail in this blog post, but like many other natives in the United States, the Creeks were forced out of their ancestral lands by the American government—with some involvement by a younger Andrew Jackson here.

But as Okeowo describes that history, she also gives a profile of a contemporary Creek politician. Okeowo tells us that she doesn’t fully trust this woman because she is a politician, but provides her background and how she wanted to become someone who advocates for her people because of the way she grew up.

This is a common type of profile that reoccurs throughout the book, which makes what we’re reading so much more real beyond the more cut and dry historical facts and Okeowo’s experiences (which are great—not trying to discount them, but adding in other perspectives helps create a somewhat more holistic representation of what goes on in Alabama).

An obvious emphasis on this book is on the experiences of Black Alabamians as well. The Clotilda and the last slaves are brought up, as well as the Civil War, but in this book we go into the politics of segregation, people’s experiences with it, and how even today there are people who still uphold the horrific legacy of slavery and its beliefs in Alabama.

This is something I’m not particularly surprised by when reading books like these, but it still struck me while I was still reading it.

Overall Thoughts

I didn’t know what I was going to think when I picked up this book originally, but I had that inherent curiosity and wanted to learn more about this history and the people living there. Okeowo is indeed correct when they say that people have stereotypes and biases on those who live in the South, especially Alabama, and it’s through consuming books like these that we can understand each other a little more.

I was not familiar with Okeowo’s work as a writer and journalist before reading this book, but I was impressed by how she uses language in a direct, but accessible way. Everything felt so well articulated and researched that it was impressive—when you’re working with large amounts of information the reader isn’t going to be familiar with, it’s hard to make it understandable for a lot of people.

This can be a bit of a dense book though because of its content, so I suggest taking your time with it. I think it’s worth picking up once at your local library or indie bookstore to see if you like it or not. Read 100 pages and see where you land after that point—you might enjoy this a lot!

I certainly enjoyed reading it, even if it took me a little longer than usual. I recommend it.

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