All her life, Winnie passed for White, using it to her advantage, and climbing the social ladder. When her child is born Black, she asks Jolene to raise him. "If you can't ask your sister, who can you ask?"
The Sexy Nerd's Review. . .
When I first started reading this story, I was impressed. I thought this is pretty good for an author that I’ve never heard of, but have you ever seen a person you thought at first glance was so beautiful only to notice the more you stared how unattractive they really are?
If you said, ‘yes,’ then half the battle is won with this review. This story is sort of all over the place and I’m not exactly sure where to begin. Our story takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana. I believe the period was during slavery, but near the end of slavery because some of the slaves were free in this book. The years are a bit hazy at best. That’s the first problem. The back stories of Jolene and Winnie and how they came to know each other. When I read the synopsis for this story, I thought the two women were biological sisters, but it turns out they were sold to a school that groomed pretty young slave girls into “fancies.” You were considered a Fancy when you were of lighter skin. The darker skinned slave girls were sold as cooks and maids, although a few did manage to become fancies.
I mention this part because the author felt the need to inundate the reader with what a ‘fancy’ is and the importance of how she can become one. That began to grate on my nerves. To me, once you’ve established the characters’ lives and back stories, there wouldn’t be a need to continually advise the reader of it, correct? Once Winnie graduated from the finishing school, she met and fell in love with what would eventually become her husband, Jonathan. Winnie carried a dark secret and she loved Jonathan so much that she told him the absolute truth that she was a black woman passing for white. She was prepared to walk away because she knew her lover wouldn’t stay with her knowing she was really black, but to her surprise, he married her anyway because he loved her so much.
And let’s talk about that ‘love.’ Winnie is the same woman who loved Jonathan so much that when she got pregnant, she immediately became frightened because even though she was extremely fair skinned, her parents were as dark as night. What if her unborn child is born of darker skin? What will this do to her husband and his standing in the legal community? Her secret would be known throughout the land. So, Winnie, who loved her husband so much and kept no secrets from him ever makes the decision to give her unborn child to her sister, whom she met in finishing school, to raise him as her own since Jolene could not pass, but was still light skinned enough to be a fancy.
Are you following where I’m going with this, Nerds? What annoyed me is if Winnie and Jonathan loved each other so much and kept nothing from each other and she braved the news that she was black to him, why would it never occur to her husband that their child could come out brown or dark skinned? And, more importantly, if he loved her as much as he said it throughout the story, would he have cared what his son’s color was? Jonathan was so ignorant to this fact and believed the lies his wife told him when he traveled to see the Governor on business to run for mayor, Winnie gave birth and gave her son to Jolene to raise. Oh, but wait a minute. Jolene was only to raise Winnie’s son for a short period of time. She was going to eventually bring him back to the big house to live with her and her husband. Hmm, what lies would Winnie concoct to explain this to Jonathan?
So, readers, this is where my problems with this story really began to frustrate me. This story started out so good and had such promise. I could see a hundred different scenarios play out through my mind’s eye, but none of what I read ever came to fruition. The author took us down a completely different rabbit hole. But the absolute worst part of this story for me was the ending. The ending angered me to no end. Thank God this Kindle version was only 267 pages because if I would have vested any more time in this book, I think I would not have finished it. To think, I originally gave this book four stars, but I chopped off a star when I got to the very end. OMG! Yeah, I wanted to slit my wrists.
I am not a fan of this story. Amazon advised there were other books in this series from this author. Eh, I think I’m good. Umm, not going to go any further with this story. I might have considered that, had the ending not been so devastatingly gruesome. My, my, my!
The Sexy Nerd gives Sisters three additional friends to pal around with. As I mentioned, I’m not a fan of this story. It started off strong and gave lots of promise, but the more I read, the more questions I had and the more problems I had with the continuity and time period and things that just weren’t explained and left me hanging. Ugg, it was all over the place. This was not the way I wanted to end my Black History Month reading, but at least most of it was awesome reads. Until next time, Nerds, you know what to do.
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