I really liked this! It was just what I needed to get out of my slump. And in the same breath, not at all what I was expecting. How events unfolded in the narrative surprised me in a very pleasant way, and I suppose that's the best way to describe this book: pleasant.

The characters are each very different and very similar - you can tell that they are all related. Desiree and Stella are identical outwardly but internally completely different people and this defines the entirety of the story. Stella has left her life behind and built a new one, while Desiree returns and lives scrimping by. They are polar opposites and the contrasts that their choices have created are at times inconceivable. But that's what makes it so believable - Stella would be persecuted if people found out her lies, Desiree raised her daughter honestly and allowed her to better herself through the changing climates of desegregation.

Of course, it all comes to blows when Jude, Desiree's daughter, and Kennedy, Stella's daughter, meet unexpectedly. Raised completely different, one in the light and one in the dark. Knowing and not knowing. The novel is a discovery of truth and a family drama.