Author: Brit Bennett
The novel starts its epic journey around 1940 in Mallard, a fictional town in Louisiana, whose residents happen to be mostly light skinned black people. Desiree and Stella are twin sisters who grow up in this town and for the next 300 pages you are treated to what the next half century has in store for them. Ms Bennett brings the town Mallard to life with its obsession for light-skinned black people. I don't know if this obsession was for real back then, but it is interesting to see how society was stratified into the rich white people and then the lighter skinned blacks that serve them. Darker skinned field hands are considered to be at the bottom of the barrel and the residents of Mallard would have nothing to do with them.
Desiree and Stella are beautiful young girls with light skin, hazel colored eyes and could easily pass off as white girls. There's not too many options for the twins as they grow up and they are initially conscripted into cleaning houses like their mother. But eventually they follow different paths and you are quickly transported to the different worlds that they inhabit. After a while the story is taken over by the next generation. The second half of the book is more predictable as the characters have already been cast and there's not much room for creativity. Nevertheless, the book moves quickly and I found myself eager to see how the story would end.
