Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⬜
Title: What's Mine and Yours
Author: Naima Coster
Genre: Fiction
Author Info: She / Her
Setting: The Piedmont, NC / Los Angeles, CA / Paris, France / Atlanta, GA
Month Read: April 2021
Book Type: Hardcover
Publication: 2021
Pages:341
*March 2021 Book of the Month pick
TRIGGER WARNING-
Drug Abuse / Sexual Themes / Animal Abuse / Racism / Death / Gun Violence / Miscarriage / Depression / Abortion
"Being a wife, it seemed, was mostly waiting. Waiting for a phone call, waiting to be thanked, waiting for a delivery, the plumber, her husband to come home, to ask whether she was all right, to slip a hand in her underwear. Waiting with her legs up. Waiting because it seemed away to love him."
No Spoiler Summary:
What's Mine and Yours is a novel about American families and the differences that divide them. It brings you through race, addiction, relationships, social class, and I haven't read a review that has been the same as the next- each reader seems to take something different from this novel and it would be a fantastic book club pick.
The book focuses on a town in North Carolina that is about to integrate their high school, and 2 families that are affected by this change. It also jumps in time, from the 2000's, to the late 2010's you follow Ray, Gee, Jade, Noelle, Lacey May, Margarita, and Diane.
You follow Jade & Gee, a black family who will start attending this school as part of a new program. Jade hopes Gee will have what she didn't, Gee mostly hopes to forge ahead unnoticed and without many waves. They've both struggled from tragedies in their past, and Jade promises to protect her son no matter the cost.
On the other side of the debate, you find The Venturas. Lacey May is hell bent on stopping the new kids from coming to her daughter's school, much to her eldest's chagrin. Another family marred by tragedy and secrets Lacey May decides that this will be the cause that forces her children to love her.
You follow both families (and multiple character POV's) through this novel, and find that even when families are so different, they're also so similar. Will a play truly bring everyone together in the way Noelle hopes it will?
Review:
I really loved What's Mine and Yours so much more than I initially thought I would. I'm a big fan of books that feature multiple Points of View, and love seeing the different motivations, thoughts, hopes, and dreams of each individual character.
It was hard to find characters in this that were really likeable (though there are a few), but the flawed characters in this novel were so real it was hard to put it down. There were some really poignant moments that were so unexpected, things that drove the characters in every decision they made throughout their lives and why they chose to do the things that they do.
I loved following the different struggles when it came to a race- a racist white mother who has 3 half Columbian daughters and doesn't see the hurt her actions cause as she rallies to get kids from the other side of the tracks kicked out of this new school program.
The Eldest daughter who rallies against her mother, who uses Shakespeare to bring new and old kids alike together to try to heal this divide. Who grows up through each trial the book throws at her, each new hurdle she has to jump over.
What's Mine and Yours is the perfect book for this time of racial tumult, and if you haven't read it I would really push getting a copy. It's a quick read and a page turner, filled with characters fighting demons, fighting to survive, fighting for their kids, or what they think their kids need. Everyone is so human, and so broken and the book spends chapter after chapter trying to put the broken pieces back together.
Recommendation:
Books that tackle race and social class:
The Vanishing Half by Brit Benett
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys (YA)
Dear Martin by Nic Stone (YA)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (YA)
Books that tackle social class:
Serpent King & In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner (YA)
The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
"To be a mother was like this: to fight desperately to hold on to yourself most days, to struggle against the snare of your child, to focus on his future instead of your own. And then, suddenly, to feel bowled over by your love for him, to feel his breath is your breath, your music is his music, and you are the same."
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