“Love Rita is a beautiful and heart wrenching exploration of the relationship between wound, history, inheritance, and disease. In this story of Black sisterhood, familial love and devotion are proven to be the Grace notes of our existence. Everyone who lives with or is impacted by chronic disease should read this book.”

–IMANI PERRY, New York Times bestselling author of South To America

“Love, Rita is on one level a personal tribute to a lost sister, but its scope is wider, looking at illness as a collective accumulation spanning back centuries. This book made me think in new ways about all we carry in our bodies – those of us who survive and those who don’t. Achingly beautiful, truthful and deep.” 

–DANZY SENNA, Author of Caucasia and Colored Television

“In her memoir “Love, Rita,” Bridgett M. Davis brings together the sharp eye of a journalist and the tenderness of a sister and daughter to trace the tangled throughline of joy and tragedy that runs through her family. The book is at once a love letter as well as an indictment of the countless ways American society, particularly the health-care system, has failed Black Americans.” 

–LINDA VILLAROSA, author of Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives

“Bridgett M. Davis has given us an exquisitely rendered look at sisterhood from her perch as the only living sibling from her family of five. “Love, Rita” mines universal themes of sibling rivalries and shared caregiving duties, but Davis importantly infuses her memoir by investigating the widespread effects of “weathering,” detailing the ways our unequal justice and medical systems disproportionately harm Black bodies. I didn’t want this book to end.”

–BETH MACY, author of Dopesick and Raising Lazarus

“Love, Rita is a loving homage to a sister and a fiercely intelligent meditation on what it means to exist in America as a Black woman. It is a tribute to family, and an unflinching reckoning with historical trauma. Bridgett Davis has written a book that must be read by everyone who has ever loved, and lost, and come to discover again the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood. I could not put it down.”

–MAAZA MENGISTE, author of The Shadow King, finalist for the 2020 Booker Prize

“Love, Rita is a moving story about the enduring bonds of sisterly love in all its complexities. A searing indictment of the effects of racism and discrimination, Davis’ writing is so heartfelt and tender that you will feel like Rita is your sister too.”

–AVA CHIN, author of Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming

“Bridgett Davis proves herself to be a master chronicler of familial bonds between and among Black women with this unforgettable sister story, Love Rita, a follow-up to the knockout memoir about her mother, The World According to Fannie Davis. I couldn’t put it down.”

— EMILY RABOTEAU, Lessons For Survival: Mothering Against the Apocalypse

“Bridgett Davis is a master at weaving together family history and social commentary. Love, Rita is another triumph in her creative oeuvre. Part love letter, part elegy, it reveals the power of Black women’s bonds and joy practices. It hums a soothing numeric melody, even as it wrestles with the aches of chronic illness, grief, and the failures of the U.S. healthcare system. A poignant, tender meditation for our turbulent times. You must read this book.”

–TANISHA FORD, author of Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement

“Bridgett Davis offers an intimate lesson in Black American grief and sisterhood in Love, Rita. Using her family’s story to illustrate research that shows how racism ends Black lives early, Davis deftly illuminates how this grim knowledge only sharpens grief’s edge—and her loss.”

–TRACIE MCMILLAN, author of The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America

“Whether you are a sister, a caretaker, or any woman, you will find much that is relatable in LOVE, RITA. Bridgett Davis’s loving tribute to her sister, and their complicated relationship, offers deep insight into the world of chronic illness, intergenerational trauma, and family dynamics — as seen through the lens of a black woman in America. This memoir is honest, empathetic, and searing. What a gift to readers and book clubs.”

–PAMELA KLINGER-HORN, Valley Bookseller, Stillwater, MN