Self-help ✦ Penny’s Take 🎧 Audiobook
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Trevor Noah · 2026
🎙 Narrated by Trevor Noah (self-narrated)
88/100
👍 Worth It
Noah's memoir is the real deal - funny, harrowing, and illuminating all at once, and hearing him voice his own story in multiple languages is a treat that earned him an Audie Award. There's real darkness here too, including domestic violence and some rough language, so it's a 15-and-up listen, but it's absolutely worth it.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
⚠ Parent note — our reviewers flagged: Contains domestic violence (including a shooting) and some coarse language - not appropriate for younger children. We still scored it 88; these are context for your family, not an automatic skip.
▶ Listen to a sample
🎙 Narration: excellent Self-narrated by Noah, who won the 2018 Audie Award for Best Male Narrator switching fluidly between English, Xhosa, and Zulu.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety60
Substance / usefulness92
Craft & writing95
Originality85
Evidence & accuracy88
Hype vs delivers85
Age-fit50
Human-eye read90
Penny’s verdict88
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