Kindred is a modern classic for a reason. If you haven't heard of it, Kindred was published by Octavia Butler in the late 1970s. It is about a Black woman named Dana who mysteriously travels back in time to 1819 and is mistaken for a slave. On her first trip back in time, she saves a small red haired white boy named Rufus from bodily harm. When she starts going back in time again, Dana begins to realize the time discrepancies and patterns in her mysterious travel. 

Each time Dana travels back in time, she finds Rufus in trouble and she continues to help him. The stakes are always high, what if Dana is accused of being a runaway? What if she is whipped or beaten? The stakes climb exponentially when Dana travels back in time with her white husband, but she returns to the 1970s without him- by no fault of her own. 

This story kept me engaged and on the edge of my seat. I loved how Octavia Butler's writing felt as fresh and new as a recently published book and that she discussed topics that are just as relevant today as they were fifty years ago including the family dynamics around interracial marriage and the desire of white people to view the past with rosy glasses and then try to run from it whenever possible. I think I should have seen the end coming but it became a tense, slowly unraveling twist that I enjoyed immensely. 

I think Kindred is a fantastic book, a must read for anyone who likes historical fiction or dual timeline stories. The magical realism or sci-fi elements here are so well done but not written in so much detail that it creates wholes in the logic, so don't let that scare you away. Just pick up this book as soon as you can!