This makes the novel a bizarre literary puzzle that keeps you entertained as you read, always putting pieces together and waiting for the next clue, the next fragment, the next revelation. For starters, there’s a lot going on that readers don’t know, but Morrow shows us just enough to wonder. While Farrah and Cherish, who are inseparable, try to cope with their situation while stuck in the interstitial space between childhood and adulthood, strange things start to happen at the Whitmans’ place: Cherish’s mother gives her a bizarre gift, Farrah gets very sick, she finds a strange journal, and the young men she and Cherish like make things even more complicated.Ĭherish Farrah works on various levels.
Unfortunately, Farah’s mother, a strict Black woman who has shown Farrah most of what she knows about control, getting her way, and wearing a mask, is trying to convince her that she belongs at home and that there’s something off about the Whitmans. While her parents get things sorted, Farrah moves in with Cherish and her family, but although Cherish is Black, her parents have given her everything and spoiled her to the point that Farrah refers to it as her being WGS-“White Girl Spoiled.” Farrah wants to stay in control of the situation, and she wants to stay with the Whitmans as long as possible. For Farrah, the loss of the house equals a loss of status, and she starts to feel she’s at the bottom rung of the social ladder.Īpple | Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound
When Farrah’s parents suddenly find themselves in a rough financial situation, they have to move, putting up their house for sale. She’s also a very visible minority at school, and she’s the only one who has Black parents because Cherish Whitman, her best friend, also Black, was adopted by a doting white couple. Besides being a novel that pulls readers into the psychological unraveling of a young woman facing major life changes, it also cuts deep into the inner workings of racism, socioeconomic background, utilitarian friendship, young love, and the masks people wear-and think others are wearing-while dealing with the world.įarrah Turner is seventeen, and she’s one of only two Black girls in her country club community.
But there’s no better descriptor for Bethany C. The world cerebral gets thrown around a lot, which means it has, like so many other words, lost a bit of its impact.
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