Overall rating and opinion of "Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream" by Dr Frank L Douglas.

[AntonelaMaria]

After reading the Amazon sample and previously an interview with the author I can only say that everybody would benefit from reading this.

[Brenda Creech]

This is a very inspirational story. I especially liked the grit and determination of the author. He refused to let discrimination or anything else stand in his way of achieving the best life has to offer. I would certainly give the book 4 out of 4 stars and recommend it to anyone feeling hopeless in life's struggles as well as to anyone who enjoys a truly inspirational story!

[Verna Coy]

Written by an author from South America, I expected this book to be quite adventurous. The first half was the part I liked the best, the story of this author's childhood and growing up in South America. What I liked the most was his closeness to his mother, and how he supported her through the years. When he was receiving his education in the U.S., he sent his provided stipend to her to help. I believe a lot of non-citizens do this. What I liked least in the book was the heavy subject of racism. The author, although having to deal with a certain amount of that in the era this book is written about, still included some of it in his writing style in the book. Did anyone notice he always capitalized the letter 'b' in black students but did not capitalize white, or minority students? It was plain to see how the author feels, and he is certainly free to write the kind of book he likes. I don't plan to recommend this book to others because of the negativity written into the storyline throughout the story regarding racism, especially. I too noticed the unnecessary hyphens(and yes, they are mistakes) as well as numerous (4 pages worth) other errors. For these reasons, I gave this book a 2 out of 4 stars.

[Nisha Ward]

I really liked it and I'm gonna give it a 3 out 4 stars. Dr. Douglas was quite inspiring and I feel like there's a lot that can be learnt from his journey, not just on a professional level but also on a personal level.

[Aan Granados]

I have read the sample and it seems so powerful and inspirational and at the same time frustrating. It is unfortunate that even in his own country he was discriminated upon. But his attitude and faith helped him in his life struggles.

[Janalyn101]

i gave Defining Moments Of A Black Stream 4 Stars. He is A shining example of a survivor. I don’t like today’s bed of being a victim. He live by the motto it is not what others think but what I know and because of that he succeeded. I would recommend this book to anyone. I am proud to know the doctor and no he exist in a world where lesser man or more popular.

[Mindy Conahye]

I haven't read this book yet, but I like that it appears to be inspiration. I gravitate towards inspiration books. I also like that there are plenty of positive reviews on it already. I like when I book comes highly recommended.

[Shadiid]

I would recommend this book to everyone I come across because everyone goes through some sort of discrimination in their lives. Some at work, some in their own homes and some in their communities. I think that Dr. Frank's experiences will encourage, motivate and give someone hope.

[Heatholt]

I have not finished the book of the month yet but in my opinion, it would be a great read for any educational institution. So far I have found it really inspiring.

[DC Brown]

As of now, I am about 20% done with "Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream" and I have run across several differences examples of grammar (for lack of a better term) that I believe to be cultural. For example, Douglas hyphenates words that shouldn't be hyphenated (ex. infin-itesimal on pg 62) and capitalizes some nouns (such Pregnancy on pg 64). I know the capitalizing of nouns is found in German grammar, but i have never seen an author use hyphens in the same way.

At first I found this a little confusing, but I was able to quickly re-calibrate myself... Which brings to me wonder if other have had the same issue? I do enjoy the unique way Douglas writes, and I wonder if there are other books that have these little culture grammar bombs? And how else does one's culture effect how one writes?.

I am about half done reading the book. I am finding it difficult to read due to all the distractions. I am using an epub and the formatting of the pages is lacking. The header and footer (The title and author for the header, the page number for the footer) show up in the middle of pages and sometimes in the middle of a sentence. It makes for very choppy reading. I also have noticed the hyphens and the capitalized letters and wondered why.

[Nym182]

Oh wow, I have those same weird breaks! I just assumed I downloaded it in the wrong format or something! It definitely is quite annoying... and sometimes paragraphs near the bottom of the page start with the title of the book, which throws me off like each time!

[Erin Painter Baker]

I go back to my comment when this was the book of the day - I really wish there were an audio-book version. I am guessing that had I gotten to listen to this book, I would rate it more highly than I will be for reading the e-book version. I had the Kindle version, and the formatting was messed up throughout. It was very obvious that when this book was converted to Kindle/e-book, no one bothered to go through and check the formatting.
I believe formatting issues are part of what led to the weird hyphenation in words as well. My guess is is that in the actual print version, those words were at the end/beginning of lines, which is why they were hyphenated. But that was not the case in the e-book version.
In addition, given all the punctuation and capitalization errors, I thought that it was possible that English was not the author's first language. And maybe it is not, but it is the official language of Guyana.
Honestly, I had to stop tracking all the errors I found, or I was never going to finish reading the book. At the start, it felt like I was spending more time noting the errors than I was reading the story.

All of that said, I do think this is an important story to hear (which is why I wish there had been an audio version). We often want to think that the discrimination that minorities, and especially blacks, in the US faced in the 1960s is gone, but it is not. It is just hidden a bit more. It can be hard to hear our culture called out, but it is necessary.
Still, I found it odd that the author said he wrote this book for his family, and yet there was almost no mention of his family. He mentioned getting engaged. And then the next time he mentioned his family, he had gotten married and had two young kids. I was surprised he never even mentioned when he got married or moving his wife to the US from Guyana.
I appreciate that he loved his mother, but he spent more time telling us about her death than he did saying anything about his children or wife.

I still have my full review to write, but I will be giving this book 2 stars. It would be 3 stars, but the formatting, grammatical, and editing errors make the book difficult enough to read that I have to lower the score by a full star.

[FREDFDK]

I would give such an interesting book3/4..there are tenses which I don't really understand

[Wambui-nj]

I loved the book and would rate it 4 out of 4. I would recommend it to anyone facing racism or any kind of discrimination. Also, anyone struggling to make it in life or to achieve new goals would find the book encouraging and would learn something from author's life.

[Czolly23]

I loved and was inspired by Dr. Douglas’s life story, but I must admit I was a little disappointed. I found the autobiography to be jumpy and not linear. I also felt that he would get caught up in some of the scientific explanation, and it made it difficult to follow. The way it converted to kindle was difficult to read and caused many formatting issues. I truly loved his story of struggle and beating the odds. I find it inspiring and motivating to read the experiences of others. If the book had some professional editing, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to others