hfjarmer's Reviews (394)

I have read a lot of raving reviews about this book and honestly...I don't get it. While I understood this book to be a discussion of race and culture, it read more like another book where the white people are telling the black woman's story, and maybe that was the point? Considering Emira was the main character, we got shockingly little out of her, not much insight into her thoughts and feelings. This story felt more like two crazy high school ex's who can't let anything go and drag this poor nanny (who happens to be a young black woman) into their weird obsession with one another. All of Alix's discussion of Emira read more like a romantic infatuation than an interest of any other variety. And we completely lose the story line with Peter and how all this got started until the absolute end of the book. The characters felt very one dimensional, and a lot of the plot felt lacking. Overall I was pretty disappointed to say the least.