Overall a really intriguing and haunting book that takes on the social issues of anti-Blackness, exploitation, and visibility in an intelligent and subtle way, through the horror genre.

I was originally taken aback by the chosen protagonists, but I understood they were made to be despised. I decided to stick with it, sensing some intentionality and eventual comeuppance, and their initial unlikeableness eventually paid off as I was made to pity the characters at face value but also sat with this underlying tension, knowing their social privilege.

It hit me about 50 pages in that I felt really gripped by the turn of events and then the progression continued to surprise me. The way Kunzru evolves the point of view towards the end gave me the sort of chills that I’ve previously had from reading Beloved. I felt that I was made to feel dissociated by it, and there were multiple times where I felt Kunzru successfully played with the immersion in a particular time, narrator, or belief system. Really delightfully surprised by the way the story and writing style progressed.

My overall takeaway, which the book’s title hints at, came through in a way that did not feel disrespectful to what I know of the Black experience in America. However, this is still an open question for me since I’m not Black, and I’d be curious to know what Black readers’ stance is on this piece of writing especially since the author is not themselves Black, nor American as far as I know. I’m also curious what the process of deciding to write this story was like since I’m not used to seeing non-Black, non-American authors write about this subject matter.