Written in a modern, free-flowing prose, Bernardine Evaristo’s tour de force featuring 12 British black women was a book unique to anything I’ve read before. While it took me a bit to get used to the writing style with its lack of punctuation, once I did it flowed so beautifully I wish every book was written like this. I also learned a TON of new vocabulary throughout the course of this book which I appreciated.

I was worried that once each character’s story ended I would miss them and have trouble moving on. But I felt Evaristo did a great job of making each story feel complete providing a sense of closure for the reader.

I was especially impressed by how she was able to write from the perspective of women aged 16 to 92 so believably that they felt like real people, real experiences. A few stories that really stood out to me were Amma, Dominique, Carole, Hattie and Grace.