The Guardian's Sukhdev Sandhu provided a mixed review, saying 'he's best when writing about his own feelings.' Sandhu continued, 'Laymon's prose can be erratic, lurching between showy 'y'alls' and academese such as 'modes of memory'. In reviews, the books was called 'harrowing,' 'gorgeous,' 'spectacular,' 'dynamic,' and 'unsettling in all the best ways.' In her review for Booklist, Anne Bostrom said the book was 'o artfully crafted, miraculously personal, and continuously disarming,' that it is, 'at its essence, powerful writing about the power of writing.' Writing for the New York Times, Jennifer Szaili wrote, 'This generous, searching book explores all the forces that can stop even the most buoyant hopes from ever leaving the ground.” The Los Angeles Times's Nathan Deuel said, ' Heavy is one of the most important and intense books of the year because of the unyielding, profoundly original and utterly heartbreaking way it addresses and undermines expectations for what exactly it’s like to possess and make use of a male black body in America.'

Heavy received rave reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, NPR, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, San Francisco Chronicle, TIME, Entertainment Weekly, and Library Journal. In 2019, the book won the Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other awards and nominations.

Heavy: An American Memoir is a memoir by Kiese Laymon, published Octoby Scribner.

Heavy an american memoir book review