Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: There's a small town in Louisiana, settled by blacks, whose descendents have carried on the tradition of essentially trying to breed themselves into light skin. Some hundred years after the founding of the town, twin girls are born, who are inspeparable at birth, but after running away to find a better life, they realize that they are not so inspeparable as everyone thought. In fact, they can separate so far from each other that one can choose to live as a white woman, while the other returns home.
The question of whether the sisters reunite, and whether Stella, who passes, ever reveals the truth about her background to her husband and daughter pulls the reader through the novel. Stella and Desirée, her twin, and their daughters, one raised in the Jim Crow south, and the other in a life of privilege in Los Angeles, are characters that will not soon be forgotton. Not everyone will love this book (although there's a lot to love), but everyone will come away from it asking questions about race and identity and how the two intersect.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
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