Book Riot Read Harder Challenge #8: Read literary fiction by a BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or disabled author.

Family saga novels, when done right, can be one of the most emotionally impactful forms of fiction. The story of a family with all the joys and devastations that encompass their lives is capable of resonating with pretty much everyone. This is one of those stories.

I have almost nothing in common with the characters in this book. I am incapable of understanding everything that they, and the real people whose lives mirror this novel, went through.

This story follows a set of identical twins, Desiree and Stella, and the very different lives they lead. One twin lives in the southern black community in which they grew up. The other twin is living across the country, secretly passing for white.

We follow their lives from the 50s to the 90s through segregation, desegregation, the Civil Rights movement, the AIDs epidemic, and everything in between. Each period affects the twins differently. Some only affect them in passing.

The twins and their families are not always likable, but they are empathetic. You, as the reader, can understand why they make the decisions they make and why they sometimes consciously hurt the people around them.

It is unknown how many people fled their families to escape the discrimination, violence, and the threat of injury or death to become a new person with a new racial identity.

According to data gathered by 23andme, 4 percent of whites have at least 1 percent or more of African ancestry. For more information on this, check out this article from The Root. There are many possible explanations for this, but many speculate this could be related to passing.

The one-drop rule, the super racist law that arose in the Jim Crow era, was a big part of this. It stated that if even one drop of yourself was black, then legally you would be subject to all the laws surrounding segregation. These segregation laws affected every aspect of life. Attempts to deviate from them could result in death.

I think that’s one of the reasons this story is so powerful. It’s indicative of so many real stories of pain, love, and loss. This is a book that I will be thinking about for a long time.