Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The premise of this book is both very timely and fascinating: How do both blacks and whites perceive shades of black? The story begins in Mallard, Louisiana, a town founded by a light-skinned black man for light skinned blacks. The expectation is that as these light-skinned blacks live together and breed together, their offspring would become lighter and lighter in skin tone with each ensuing generation. This is certainly true of the founders great-great granddaughters, identical twins Stella and Desiree Vignes. After seeing the brutal murder of their father, the girls run away to New Orleans at the age of sixteen. The girls separate. One marries a coal-black man and has a dark-skinned daughter. She leaves her abusive husband and returns to Mallard where her daughter is marginalized due to her skin color. The other sister passes herself off as white, marries her white boss and they produce a blond, blue-eyed daughter. The complications of race and color are muddied as the author introduces interactions of the second generation of daughters. Suddenly LGBTQ issues and characters enter into the plot. From here the storyline deteriorates. Does the author really feel she needs to tackle all the hot, trendy issues? The plot and dialogues become predictable and uninteresting. What would have been a fascinating study of race and interracial tensions, dissipates. How disappointing!