I loveeee Nicola’s YA books. I was excited about her first adult book but this one somehow missed the mark. Not even 5% in & I was completely turned off

Have you ever read a book and had no clue how you felt about it after you finish? That is exactly how I felt. This is definitely outside of my normal genre - it’s a dystopian story about an all-black community with a touch of satire. There’s cult like stepped wives bevhavior and it is truly wild at times. There were discussions on police brutality and racism that I thought were incredibly important, but paired with what was going on in the neighborhood, the whole story was a bit odd to me.
If you read this one I would love to know your thoughts because I am still grappling with mine.
Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for the advance copy.

I've been a fan of Nicola Yoon ever since I read Everything, Everything. So when I was able to preview a copy of the book from #NetGalley, I was thrilled.

I know this book came out two months ago, but I really REALLY needed to sit on this one. This was Yoon's first "adult" geared.
So the book was set up to be similiar to "Get Out" but it wasn't at all.

This book did not hit the mark for me. I have to respect Yoon for trying a genre out of what she usually does, but this one, just didn't hit it.

This has some serious missteps. The protagonist is supremely unlikable, which I thought was on purpose at first but did not seem to be the case as I kept reading. This really lacks in subtlety, hitting you over the head with the message. I really enjoyed The Sun is Also a Star and I still have faith in Yoon's writing skills but this was definitely a miss for me.

Thank you to @prhaudio for the #gifted copy. There is no doubt this book was thought provoking and uncomfortable to read. I think I struggled most with the delivery as I wanted to really love it. It’s center around racism and being comfortable in your own skin and in your own community is the premise and an important one.

Get Out meets Stepford Wives, meets Black No More! Nicola Yoon has come through with a psychological thriller on race.
Meet Jasmyn and King Williams- a young Black couple and their son Kamau, who move to Liberty. All is not well in Liberty, however.
Why do all the residents want a spa in their home and what goes on at the Wellness Center? But more importantly, why do all the residents in this all Black gated community seem to have no empathy for Black folks out in the real world? What is it that makes us Black and if you could, would you change it? Nichola Yoon forces us to look in the mirror and ask hard questions. What is the key to ending racism and should we take it at any cost?
Many great lines that I highlighted throughout my book:
p 70 "The higher up in a tree you go, the farther away you are from your roots"
p 175 "..just playing devil's advocate...The devil she sometimes informed them, didn't need anymore advocates."
p 176 "..the world not only inflicted damage, but demanded that you survive it."
As a Black mother myself, I see the fear, anger, and despair that went into writing this book. I also see the hope, dreams and resilience that the author also hoped to impart. Loved this book.

This one just was not on my list of favorites.
Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the chance to read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for approving me for this ARC. It pains me to say this, especially since I love Nicola Yoon's YA books so much, that this was the worst book I have ever read. After being advertised as The Stepford Wives meets Get Out, I was all in, but only 10% into the book, all I felt was anger. Somehow I read this in a day, but I'm pretty sure I was angry-reading this just to get it done and over with because I truly thought the book was going to get better, but it only got worse. I fully saw where she was going, but the execution of the book was terrible. What she was trying to instill on the page, never equated to the actual plot of the story. It felt like Yoon was writing down all her angry feelings, which I 100% understand, and it was just a ramble.

There were a lot of things that really pissed me off about this book. Jasmyn wanted to recruit people into her Black Lives Matter chapter in the town of Liberty, but one of the couples she was trying to recruit had a big house, with a housekeeper, and frames on the wall with their diplomas, and she thinks "Does she even want bougie people like this joining her Black Lives Matter chapter?". For me, if someone believes in the cause, why does it matter how they're living? Why can't a Black person show off all their accomplishments in life and still go about living their normal lives? Jasmyn's husband was volunteering with a company that helps out young teens in need, but when the teen he was helping is suddenly locked up, he takes a step back, but Jasmyn is pressuring him on and on about going back because his "first duty is to the community" like nothing is more important than doing what he does. People are allowed to help out in the community but are also allowed to have jobs and families outside of it. There's a spa inside the Liberty community that her husband has been trying to get her to go to. She says "Bunch of bougie Black folks talking 'bout self-care all day. Couldn't be me." Yoon was insinuating that self-care isn't important for Black folks because their duty is to the community first and if their duty to the community isn't done, then they can't have self-care. Self-care is important anytime and anywhere no matter who you are.

I can honestly just keep going on and on and on about how terrible the themes were in this book. For me, it felt like this made the Black community a bit dirty. For Jasmyn, if you aren't doing certain things, you aren't Black enough. Her friend in the book is pregnant, and she just makes her friend uncomfortable because she keeps shoving in her face that she isn't using a Black doctor. A friend of hers relaxed her hair which made her not Black enough to Jasmyn. Friends don't have social justice posts on their social media - not Black enough. A friend is not going down to city hall to protest - Jasmyn thinks there is nothing more important than going down when she herself isn't so her friend isn't Black enough. Black people are more than just the tragedies that have happened to them in the past, but not in this story. Then the ending? Why is it important to become a white person? The author portrays it as helping to stop the injustices happening, but it feels wrong, especially coming from a Black woman herself.

If you have time, please read the reviews on Goodreads from Black people themselves. Their reviews are genuine and many seem hurt by this book alone.

I would definitely recommend this book for fans of the movies Get Out or Don’t Worry Darling. I don’t want to reveal too much but I enjoyed the audiobook and was definitely fascinated to see where it would go.

This was a highly anticipated read for me as I have loved all of Yoon’s YA novels. However, this was nothing like her other books. I really enjoyed the concept of this book and thought it was mostly well executed. I just struggled a bit with the subject matter and felt that some parts of the book were a bit out of touch. Overall, it was an interesting read and I’d definitely still read anything she writes.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy of Nicola Yoon’s “One of Our Kind” in exchange for an honest review.

***SPOILERS***

This novel started out in a promising way, with the Williams family - DA Jasmyn, finance guy Kingston and their son Kamau- moving into a new Black gated community called Liberty outside of Los Angeles. Jasmyn is proud of her Black identity but frightened about Kamau’s future as a Black boy growing up in America amidst the spate of police shootings of unarmed Black people, including children. In Liberty, Kingston fits in right away with the elites, including his boss and community founder Carlton Way. Jasmyn, though, is unsettled when only two others seem to jive with her worldview.

Giving off Stepford vibes, Jasmyn starts to worry about staying in Liberty when her former friends stop caring about Black community issues and start shedding their identities, including cutting or straightening their natural hair, turning a blind eye to the shooting of a Black child, and more.

Ultimately the message of the book seems to be that the solution to racism isn’t to fight like hell, but to give in and - no kidding - turn white.

I’m a white reader and the anti-Black messaging in this book turned my stomach. At the same time it was hard to look away - is that what the author really believes? Should society just give up trying to eradicate racism? Is there no blessing in diversity?

Three stars because it made me think and kept me captivated to find out what would happen at the end, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

This book had a really interesting concept! While I'm not an #OwnVoices reviewer for this title, I appreciated Nicola Yoon's captivating writing style and intentions behind her storytelling.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House, and Nicola Yoon for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Jasmyn Williams, her husband, and kid move to Liberty, California, a planned community - a utopia? - exclusively for Black families. Once settled, Jasmyn, a Black Lives Matter activist, feels out of place among the Black families of Liberty.

Promised to be gothic horror and suspense, One of Our Kind was reminiscent of Jordan Peele's Get Out. Except, the horrors in One of Our Kind happen in a high-end wellness center atop a hill in Liberty. Overall, I was left feeling a little unsure about Yoon's message.

I've sat on One of Our Kind for a few days and still have some mixed feelings about it. First it's listed as a mystery/thriller and in my opinion it was a slow burn horror. It was definitely lacking in the thrilling department and while there was kind of a mystery it was also not a mystery. Not sure if that makes sense, but it's how I feel.

One of Our Kind gives you plenty to think about. Jasmyn and King move to an idyllic all black community, which as you can imagine isn't quite what it seems. The vibes of this neighborhood were so off, Yoon did a great job of making it come through and shine to the reader. The ending was quite upsetting, which I'm ok with, not everything needs to be a happy ending. One of Our Kind would be a fantastic book club book as there is so much discuss with the book and in our current society.

A big five stars from me! It ticks all the boxes… culty stuff, SNAFUs, and a curious main character who just doesn’t know when to quit.

I really love Nicola Yoon's young adult books, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect for this. I thought this was a pretty good story but I felt a bit uncomfortable reading it and I couldn't quite figure out why. This book felt anti-black, and a lot of what happened made no sense.

This is a tough book to review. I need to review it, I received it as an eARC via NetGalley and want to honor my side of the exchange of an unbiased review. But of course there is bias. The subject of the book, racial trauma, is a very complex and complicated one that, being white, I have so much empathy but no lived experience for.

Here are some things I noticed: very much Get Out vibes but with no white characters. For me, it was definitely creepy and I was mentally begging Jasmyn and her friend Keisha to literally gtfo the whole time. I was definitely freaked out and anxious while reading this, so while the parallels were very much there and the conclusion was easy to foresee, I found myself unable to turn away, while also gradually feeling more and more horrified that the trusted community of our protagonist would ultimately be her betrayers, on top of all the harm our racist misogynistic society has already inflicted. The story also reminded me of The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Delila Harris, a book I enjoyed and felt terrified of.

Additionally, I can tell that Yoon has mainly written YA by the style of writing. I like YA a lot, so this was not a bad thing for me as much as just a noticing. Our protagonist Jasmyn has a lot of pride in being Black and is in fact the last holdout in this community she has joined, which as it turns out is undergoing all kinds of procedures to become white, but, as others have noticed, her identity seems to be wholly centered around her trauma. She identifies strengths such as resiliency, and in a lighter moment, a friend identifies the food and culture that Black people have contributed to the American way of life. This same friend notes (accurately) that white people do not seem to feel the same pressure to teach their children all of the positive things about being white, because of course they do not need to - the privilege of that is baked into daily American life. Where it gets very tricky is that, as others have noted, while Jasmyn is the voice that tries to address and confront internalized racism and anti-blackness, that is essentially the entire motivation of her character, to be set against racism. To have a character whose whole shtick is just being set against something else (and then to have even that flatness erased) is not a great example of a multi-dimensional character, and we all deserve to have stories with really deep characters.

Someone else notes that the story is essentially Stepford Wives, just instead of changing all the women, they are changing all the Black people. The change is painted as tragic, but all the same, the last Black character we see is Jasmyn’s old friend Tricia, and she is distraught and crying - so while it is is tragic Jasmyn has been changed into a white woman, we are also left with the feeling that being Tricia is tragic too.

The story and book do seem like they were conceived of and written in a time of despair and my heart really goes out to the author. While I enjoyed the creepy/scary aspect of the book, I don’t know if it’s a story that a community can really rally behind the way the author had perhaps hoped or intended. It may not be the right thing to do to “give in rather than give up,” but… centering one’s entire being around the fight is also such a quick way to burn out.

This reminded me a lot of Sarah Langan's book A Better World, but for Black people.
I'm white so idk if I'm the best reviewer for this book, but it was fucked up in. Jordan Peele kinda way that makes you very uncomfortable.

(2.5 stars)

I was so disappointed by this book. I love the author’s YA Books but I could barely get through this one. This was very clichéd and honestly felt like satire.

I want to start by saying that I am usually quite a fan of Nicola Yoon's books. I have read a few and quite enjoyed them and found them to be unpredictable for me, which is something I always rave about in a book when I find one that can surprise me.

However, this isn't one of those books, and it was a bit of a disappointment for me from Yoon. I saw the ending of this book coming in the first 3 chapters, and I was right. I completely predicted it. I think this is likely due to the fact that it felt like a re-write of "Get Out" the movie, but much worse. Beyond that, the subject this book is attempting to tackle is very important, and sensitive...and I do not feel it was handled appropriately. I felt very uncomfortable during the time I read this book, and it was not in a "facing truths that are difficult to acknowledge" or "I am growing as a person" type of a discomfort. It felt more like "this is not how you should talk about these very sensitive and important topics" type of discomfort.

The book for me fell flat on a few fronts...

1. How Race Is Discussed...It was a very odd and uncomfortable read, and not in the way that it was intended to be. The way POC (particularly black people which she is focusing on in the novel) are spoken about feels very anti-POC & stereotypical "this is what it means to be black" and "to be black you have to do this, like this, say this, feel this, want this" and it was very bizarre given the message that she's trying to articulate. The main character, Jasmyn, was very judgmental and had a righteousness to her, constantly commenting on others ability to watch police brutality, feelings, or if they wanted to go to riots or not.

I don't see how that connected to or proved the other characters being comfortable in their skin/race. It felt very "one way to be black" how Jasmyn behaved, spoke and thought. But Yoon (and Jasmyn) didn't start there, she went even further to make weird comments about an Asian couple that briefly are introduced in the book, and if for no other purpose then to show how every race is racist towards black people...and it was very strange and I had an extremely hard time connecting it to the story.

The Asian family in question make comments such as "my husband & I joked about becoming black just to move there (Liberty neighborhood in the novel)" and how Jasmyn feels uncomfortable and sad that even the Asian family thinks being black is only good for the "benefits" it offers them. Then how Jasmyn also feels uncomfortable that the Asian wife says "you know we face racism too, not just you"...this felt very strange and out of place in this novel that is supposed to be about racism against black people vs. white people.

The number of times the "paper bag test" was mentioned and enforced by Jasmyn, who was supposed to be the very "black power" character was unsettling. Why would a character against racism and stereotypes be repeatedly using such racist methodologies and set expectations the entire book to judge the "blackness" of her fellow black friends, colleagues, neighbors, etc.

2. Setting The "Standard" We All Must Meet To Care About A Cause...I cannot find the connection between being unable to watch the murdering/abuse/mistreatment of anyone/anything with not caring about a cause or issue. The idea that characters in this book didn't care about police brutality or fellow black community members because they could not stomach watching videos of it happening is wild. I think we as humans can care about and understand very much so that things are extremely wrong and feel anger, sadness and drive for change without watching it happening to people via videos. The way Jasmyn acted like others were terrible for not caring based on this criteria was weird and very holier than thou.

3. The Writing...I found the foreshadowing and context clues to be not only extremely repetitive and overused in EVERY FREAKING CHAPTER, but they were so OBVIOUS. The minute King started working on his special water and then it was all over the place I knew it was something that had to do with making the black members of Liberty white. Same with the Community Center, where all the members who went there were constantly described as not being black enough to Jasmyn. I mean it was laid out so obvious that the only reason I finished the book was because I needed to provide a review as an early reader. Otherwise, I would have stopped because I knew the ending within my first 10 minutes in.

The flow was also quite choppy. It did not flow organically, and as kindly as I can say, I think this is due to Yoon being a primarily YA Author. The flow and rhythm and complexity to not match what I would expect out of Adult Fiction. Don't get me wrong, I love both Adult & YA fiction for what they both offer, but I don't want them muddied. I expected much more out of this adult novel than I received. It lacked complexity, logical climax building and character development ceased to exist. Not a single character grew, changed or evolved the entire book. How boring that was.

4. Jasmyn is supposed to be the social justice advocate we can love, but everything she does and says is so anti-black that it was uncomfortable, and not in a way that helped me grow or learn as a reader. You had to be natural afro having or dread lock wearing, dark skinned, certain way of speaking, certain way of dressing, loud and boisterous, social media posting, cause rioting, every second of your life debating what counts as caring about being black, police brutality video watching to be black in the eyes of Jasmyn. No gray area there. She made me feel wrong listening to how the black characters were spoken about, described and judged. She didn't allow anyone to just exist how they felt comfortable. They needed to prove they were black to her. It was not a good stance for a main character in a novel with the message she was attempting to make.

5. The Ending Was Awful...I predicted the ending full stop, but that didn't make it any less awful. It held all the action, and completely unfolded in the last like 20~ pages. The entire novel was repeat of the same day and events pretty much, and then she shoved all her wild "reveal" details into the very end and wanted us all to jump on board and be enlightened and thought provoking about it. Sorry, but after chapters of no one being "black enough" for Jasmyn and very obvious "LOOK AT THE WATER" "LOOK AT THE COMMUNITY CENTER" "EVERYONE AT THE COMMUNITY CENTER STOPS BEING BLACK ENOUGH AND LOOKING LESS BLACK AND LIKE PAPER BAGS" I knew what was happening at the end...and I hated how she described the whole process there. But the grand like 5 page finale of being turned white was a terrible choice in my opinion. To make a novel about how black Americans have to fight to be treated and seen as equals end with black Americans creating a little "dystopian neighborhood" where they can "excel just like white people" end with black couples torturing and mind controlling their family and partners to turn them white to give up the fight against racism and just become white to cater to the idea of what "all white people would be happier happening" was weird and felt counterproductive. It wasn't white people choosing to making black people white to "erase being black" it was black people erasing black people, and even worse, husbands, wives, children doing it to their own families and to themselves. What are we supposed to do with that?

I would have loved to see a novel where being black wasn't attributed to a certain way of talking, being, caring, acting, speaking. I also would have loved a novel where it wasn't really black vs. black...or if it was, it was in a meaningful way that felt like learning or growing. Had people been going missing from the neighborhood and the Community Center not just been a building that was talked about but not really active in the story, and the families that no longer existed been involved in a way that was more ominous and they were introduced in the story and interacting with characters and sparking questions, and Jasmyn experienced weird incidents that she and the reader were being gaslighted on that made Jasmyn feel like an unreliable narrator only to find out she wasn't, that would have had more impact, felt more horror/dystopian and probably sent her point home better. But that simply isn't what we got.

The horror she wanted was lost...the only horror I could find was making it a black vs. black novel you could predict that just ended with Jasmyn and her family being white, forgetting who they are and that just being fine because now they're white and life is "easier". Even the smallest shift where Jasmyn is now white, but is a aware and trapped and doesn't know what to do would have been better. Lastly, I still cannot fathom why we needed the naked couple getting a massage to be an ongoing element in the story. What the heck was that even about?

I love Yoon, and I will still read future novels she writes...but I think I will steer clear of any "horror" or "dystopian" attempts she would make in the future. This one was not for me.

Lastly, thank you to NetGallery and Knopf Publishers for the Digital Advanced Readers copy of One of Our Kind.