Maurice Carlos Ruffin's debut novel has one really great idea in it that the entire rest of the book wraps around. A father trying to change the color of his son's skin from black to white. That's a great concept for a novel. Any sections of the book that deals with that concept are easily the best parts of the book. It's a dystopian future which one can imagine might not be too far off from our own future. The ever expanding fence around Tiko was a nice metaphor.

There a few aspects of it that left me a little bit disinterested. The father has a pill addiction, but when he takes them the writing of the book itself becomes disjointed and jumpy. Maybe that was on purpose but I found it distracting whenever it happened. There is also a time jump towards the end of the book that didn't quite gel with me. Overall I was impressed by what the author was going for even if I don't think he quite nailed it. I would read more of his works in the future.