⭐⭐⭐⭐.75/5 rounded up to a 5 for PageBound!

This book, though I own it, was not on my radar. I bought it because of the premise, and because the Signature Edition’s cover is absolutely stunning, more so now that I’ve read the story. The fact that I picked it up yesterday and decided to read it, is a direct result of Booktok, and why I can’t get behind the disdain. May my algorithm continue to be blessed with diversity, because one of the content creators I follow was very passionate about this novella both in video and in the comments. When I commented that she made me curious and intrigued, she urged me to drop whatever I planned to read that day, and read Nella Larsen instead. I’m so glad I listened.

The rating will round up to a five on PageBound, but I can tell you now: the reason it isn’t a five is because it ends so abruptly. I was looking for at least a tiny bit more, and I think there could have been at least an epilogue. I know that for some friends the ending would be too abrupt with no further resolution or questions answered, but that’s the only nitpick I can toss at this book.

We follow Irene, a Black woman light enough to pass as white but chooses not to. She is reintroduced to her childhood friend Clare, who had a sort of chaotic life, disappeared out of Black society and from Irene’s memory. During a trip to Chicago, Clare reappears in front of Irene as a passing white woman, married to a violently racist white man who has zero clue his wife is actually Black. Irene clocks it for the dangerous situation it is, and doesn’t really want to be friends with Clare. After a two year time jump, Clare comes back into Irene’s life and things get Less Good from there.

This is short, clocking in at just under 130 pages, so I was able to read it in a matter of hours. After I finished, I re-read the last 20 pages or so, because Irene has so much happening in her thoughts; the end reached out and slapped me in the face, then left me standing in the cold wondering what the frick actually happened. And that’s the thing: you will be wondering. We never quite know what happened at the end, and while I enjoy ruminating on all the possibilities and their consequences, I know some readers don’t like that feeling at all.

I typically have a difficult time with the language in classics, but I had no issues here. The writing is absolutely beautiful, and it’s such a shame Larsen was falsely accused of plagiarism (not for this book) to the point she never wrote (or at least never published anything) again. She seems to draw from her life living with a lighter skinned immediate family, being the only one unable to ‘pass,’ and I find that deeply interesting. The 1920s for Black people in Harlem is a place and time I want to peek into. Not to live, but to see what Irene was seeing and feeling, just for a moment. The Great Migration was in full swing, and Harlem was still up and coming.

There is so much commentary in this book about race, obviously, but also gender in general, motherhood, and personal identity. There’s a section of the book where Irene, Clare, and another ‘passing’ friend talk about the fear of pregnancy and their child coming out dark, a ‘freak of nature,’ all while Irene is sitting there thinking about her own dark-skinned children. I read that whole section with my mouth hanging open, and I’m not sure it ever fully closed again. I can see myself reaching for this to re-read in a heartbeat; I’m so glad I own it, and that I was encouraged to pick it immediately. It was absolutely worth putting off the books I had lined up.

“𝐼'𝑚 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒. 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼'𝑚 𝑠𝑜 𝑡𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑, 𝑠𝑜 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑡, 𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒.”