Review by Booklist Review
Jasmyn is a deeply committed Los Angeles legal defender. She and her husband, Kingston, a former history teacher turned corporate businessman, are raising one son with a second on the way, when, at King's urging, they move to Liberty, a small, wealthy, all-Black suburb touted as a Black utopia. Although she's skeptical about this enclave of luxury, Jasmyn is hopeful that it will be a nurturing and safe environment for their sons as white cops continue to kill Black people with impunity in the city. But their stylish neighbors seem indifferent to racial violence and social injustice. And why does everyone, including King, spend so much time at the elaborate Wellness Center? In her first novel for adults, popular YA novelist Yoon steadily builds suspense and provocation in this chilling, subtly speculative tale via perfectly selected details and unnerving conversations as Jasmyn's growing concerns and inquisitiveness turn increasingly risky. In the mode of Percival Everett, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, and Rion Amilcar Scott, Yoon presents a riveting tale spiked with surprises, laced with compassion, and designed for discussion as it raises unsettling questions about class, Blackness, parenthood, social responsibility, justice, and the hidden repercussions of deep, centuries-spanning trauma.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This masterful psychological horror novel from bestselling YA author Yoon (Everything, Everything) brings to bear all the claustrophobia of Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives against the backdrop of systemic racism and police brutality. When pregnant lawyer Jasmyn Williams, her husband, King, and their son, Kamau, move to Liberty, an upscale, all-Black enclave outside of Los Angeles, Jasmyn is excited to join a community that seems to have it all--safety, stability, and a wellness culture centered on a spa that Liberty's residents organize their lives around. Then Jasmyn realizes how cloistered the community is from ongoing racial injustices, including the recent police shooting of a Black man and his daughter. As she digs deeper into the workings of Liberty's leadership and the nature of the treatments offered at the wellness center, she uncovers a horrifying secret that, once revealed, threatens both her life and her sense of self as a Black woman in America. Yoon maintains taut, nerve-shattering suspense throughout as she delves into societal fault lines and cultural anxieties, crafting a brutally effective examination of how generational trauma roots itself in the body. The dialogue in particular shines as the characters argue, sympathize, and search for connection with one another, even in the face of the terror that surrounds them. Yoon's latest will linger in readers' minds long after its horrifying conclusion. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House. (June)
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Review by Library Journal Review
YA author (Instructions for Dancing) Yoon's first adult novel examines themes of identity, privilege, and social justice. Attorney and social justice activist Jasmyn Williams and her husband Kingston have finally bought a house in Liberty, a wealthy Black community outside of Los Angeles. Jasmyn knows her husband and young son will be safer walking the streets in Liberty, where all the police officers are Black, than in their old working-class neighborhood. But almost immediately she feels that something is not quite right there. Jasmyn becomes aware of the differences between herself and her neighbors. While she embraces her natural hair and Black Power ideas, her neighbors seem set upon a conformity that makes Jasmyn increasingly uneasy. When Kingston begins spending time at the community's secretive and heavily guarded wellness center, Jasmyn notices his growing apathy for the social justice causes the couple once championed. Feeling ever more troubled, Jasmyn turns to new friends Keisha and Charles, whose own spouses have also changed dramatically since moving to Liberty. As she works to uncover the truth, Jasmyn confronts the grim secrets beneath Liberty's impeccable facade. VERDICT At times unsettling, Yoon's narrative is a thought-provoking exploration of race and identity in modern society.--Lucinda Ward
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A wealthy Black enclave isn't what it seems in this psychological thriller. Jasmyn Williams, the protagonist of Yoon's fourth novel (and first for adults), has just moved with her husband, Kingston, and 6-year-old son, Kamau, to Liberty, a community of McMansions in suburban Los Angeles launched by a billionaire entrepreneur and tailored to affluent Black people. Jasmyn, who's pregnant, wants Liberty to be a stable perch from which to support the community beyond its gates--she's a public defender working with underprivileged clients, and Kingston is a venture capitalist who mentors at-risk youth. But most of Jasmyn's fellow Liberty-ites are oddly skittish about activism or even discussing the case of a 4-year-old Black girl shot by a white police officer. Even Kingston, whose brother died at the hands of a white cop, is standoffish, retreating to Liberty's "wellness center" for bespoke spa treatments. Increasingly, Jasmyn feels like an outsider, both because of her pregnancy and statements that increasingly get her deemed "blacker than thou"--who is she to judge a friend's decision to relax her hair or pass on joining a Black Lives Matter chapter? Though Yoon's story relates to current conversations around race, its tropes hark back to 1970s pod-people horror, particularly Ira Levin novels like Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives. (Those tropes were themselves reworked in films like Get Out.) It's clear early on that this "Black utopia" is not what it seems, but Yoon is skilled at sustaining the tension throughout Jasmyn's investigations, exposing the ways that Black communities are undermined both internally and externally. It's an artful page-turning thriller, but constantly mindful that decisions about community and identity can put lives at stake. A bracing tale of the perils of groupthink and willful ignorance. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
