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Book Review: A Brown Girl's Epiphany

Editor's Note: This review was originally published in Manhattan Book Review.

Aurelia Davila Pratt

Rev. Aurelia Dávila Pratt offers an encouraging and empowering testimony to the power of trusting one’s intuition to navigate the challenges of enduring white supremacy, racism, colorism, and classism toward liberation and abundance. In A Brown Girl’s Epiphany, Pratt writes about her own life experiences and observations as a Filipina-Chicana who grew up in a small Louisiana town. She models the journey of overcoming harmful paradigms of shame, scarcity, and racial hierarchy to fully embody “imago dei,” the Christian belief that humanity was created in the likeness of God.

Celebrating being Brown was hard-fought for Pratt, and her writing is a gift for readers who are intent on finding a way to trust their own perceptions and knowledge. Her advice about taking a critical view of long-held beliefs is particularly helpful. The author authentically shares her reflections on her mixed-race upbringing and the eventual path toward overcoming limiting beliefs, developing new habits, and learning from community and ministry. Each chapter offers a challenge to be fully aware of internal and external dynamics that may be holding us back from healing. The book is a quick read because of Pratt’s inviting prose, which reflects joy in helping people realize their goodness and divinity.

 

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