Alligator Lake is an enjoyable story about life and race in a small Mississippi town, as told by three generations of white women: Avery, the single mother of a mixed-race daughter who left home after getting pregnant and has come back for the first time in ten years; Marion, Avery's mother who is struggling to reconcile the return of her daughter and granddaughter with her views on the importance of being white; and Will, Marion's mother and a civil rights activist who tends to socialize with the "wrong" people.

The story deals with each woman's struggles with both personal issues and outside influences, and one thing that the book does really well is to show how past experiences have shaped these women through use of flashbacks. While the obvious thing would be to paint Marion as the villain, the author doesn't take the easy way out - instead we get to see why her views on the importance of race have become so different from her mother's and daughter's.

Aside from keeping the characters from being one-dimensional, the author also did a great job of creating an image of southern culture. I found myself, like Avery's daughter Celi, wondering what tomato gravy tastes like or how an earworm looks (although I could go without seeing one of those, actually). Like the characters, the town of Greendale cannot be described simply as "that racist place". Yes, there are major race issues that are the main focus of the story, but there is some good too.

Overall, I think what makes this a good book is that the author is able to capture the emotions of the characters so well. It is a very character-driven and setting-driven story, and even though there isn't much action or surprises, the story doesn't need these to keep us reading. The only (minor) complaint I have is the conclusion - plotwise it was fine, but for some reason it read a little bit too much like the conclusion to a writing assignment or something. Maybe it was too much like the final "summary and future ideas" paragraph of a paper? Anyway, this in no way takes away from the story, which I was very satisfied with. Thank you, Goodreads giveaways and Lynne Bryant!