Lydia, poor Lydia. She broke my heart. But this story was a true telling of how your choices, no matter how small, can change your life - both good and bad. A story of truth, forgiveness and growth. A story that shows how the lives of your ancestors play a part in shaping everyone in the generations to come. How holding trauma can cause you to make irrational decisions. 

The story mostly follows the main character Ailey, and her family on both her maternal and paternal sides. Strangely, both parents have a bloodline that visibly reaches back to slavery - of course - with family members that could pass as white. With a darker complexion, Ailey is faced with seeing colorism directly. She sees it and can’t ignore it, just as some of us can’t. 

I loved how the author blends the storyline and interweaves the history of the ancestors with a more current timeline. Though several decades apart, every reenactment is relevant. 

I put this book aside for a while, intimidated by the length. But it was well worth the read. Seeing Ailey navigate grief, love, lust and history was a wild ride. In the story, you get to see her parents lives before their children’s births and this allows you to see how what they went through shaped them as well. 

Uncle Root was a fav, of course. And his relationship with Ailey was dearly felt and appreciated. Though the lives of Ailey’s siblings were touched on, I would have loved to have known exactly how Coco embraced her sexuality. As well as how she navigated her studies away from her family. 

Miss Rose and her role was important. Though, I would have liked to know how her life in her younger years went from her point of view. As well as her mother, Pearl. 

Overall, this will be a fav of the year for me. This is a story that I think every Black person should read, if they can overlook its length. Though, if it were shorter the story couldn’t have thoroughly been told.

So many Black people don’t know their heritage, their bloodlines or what their people overcame and accomplished. At the end of this book, I almost cried. But I was happy to know that Ailey found her true path and discovered facts that would have otherwise been lost. History is here, we just have to seek in order to find.