I liked the idea behind this book, of centring the family around a famous man when those people are generally forgotten, but I did not like the actual experience of reading it.

The writing is repetitious and florid (I get that it's for emphasis but some paragraphs just felt like lists of synonyms) and the characterization of Anne (Agnes) as this kind of stereotypical "witchy" wise woman was annoying. Her supernatural ability to randomly know things seemed like a literary device to tell information the author didn't know how to show. The vaguely supernatural cause of Hamnet’s death was also stupid. If this wasn't billed as straight historical fiction this probably wouldn't bug me so much, but it is and it does.

this book went down smooth like sweet tea slipping down my throat on a hot july day. i don't know what part to start with because i liked so much about kin. i also watched a book talk with tayari jones speaking about kin at the new orleans book festival and it helped me appreciate and understand the nuances and details of this novel.

maybe one of my favorite things is that both niecy and annie narrate with such distinctive voices. their language is so rich and textured and felt. i could literally hear their voices in my head– this would be the perfect audiobook! every metaphor and saying and inversion of language was a gift in my lap, and there were countless passages and sentences that i had to just stop and luxuriate in. tayari jones said in her interview that she was inspired by the spontaneity and imagination embodied in black southern speech, as it is often the disenfranchised who spin language into an instrument of empowerment. i felt like a little tuning fork being struck continually by nuggets of truth and feeling. ting ting ting! what a masterful lesson in prose.

two of so many of my favorite lines from this novel– "when a woman is said to be trifling in the tone and voice reserved for a man, there's no coming back from it." "an 'i love you' that is out in the world unanswered bedevils a space, like the ghost of a whore in mississippi."

i loved both annie and niecy so very much. their identities as motherless girls intrigues me. they are both consumed and uplifted by this identity; it is the condition that brings them together as cradle friends and yet threatens to implode the worlds they create for themselves. at times, watching them seemingly chain themselves to their lost mothers was maddening and even so, completely understandable and heartbreaking.

this book is an ode to matriarchs and found family and mothering in all its manifestations. tayari jones said in the interview that women are taught to look upon female friendships with suspicion, as there is always some sort of toxicity (man-made?) to drive us apart. so the beautiful friendship between annie and niecy is almost like a clapback to this idea. each woman was so deliciously nuanced and impossible to hate. babydoll, lulabelle, aunt irene, mrs. ola mae, miss jemison, granny, joette, mrs. mchenry... these women tend and hold each other so fiercely even while putting out the fires of their own private devastations. just in general, i loved the emotional and physical depictions of romantic love in this novel. niecy and annies' relationships were messy and tender and imperfect and so human, instead of adhering to some romanticized ideal of what love and loving looks like.

this book taught me so much about a people and a place that i know so little of, and have much respect for. the deep south is a place that i am currently acquainting myself with; the busy atlanta intersection between peachtree and ponce is one that i know well by name. as lulabelle says in the book when speaking of mississippi, the south is so maligned in american imagination. especially in this faraway land of california, people speak of the south as a place of backwards people and racism and poverty. i am not denying the truth in some of these claims, but i also believe that there is more to it, just as there is more to any culture and place. kin is written with great care and love for the people and places whose stories it tells, from little honeysuckle louisiana to the big city of atlanta, georgia. i think the people around me who get on their high horse do not even begin to understand the history and the deep community ties and family values that bind these communities together despite of and in response to the adversities they face. kin made me so curious about atlanta and its black communities, and its role during reconstruction and the civil rights movement. i had always known of spelman but this book made me hungry to understand more.

at its core, kin is a story of family and sisterhood, and yet, it touches on so much more. there is so much to unpack in this novel, from the civil right movement to colorism and double standards within the black community to socioeconomic inequalities and (the loneliness of) upward mobility to queer love to reproductive freedoms and (black) female autonomy. kin follows a lineage of books on strong black southern women. i got strong sula/toni morrison vibes throughout, especially with the rich language. it also felt reminiscent of my brilliant friend, and maybe the help. i first put it on my reading list with few expectations, because i felt some sort of obligation to tayari jones as a professor at my university, and because it is a book of atlanta. but i am so glad that i read it. i have a feeling this is a book that i will return to time and time again, and i hope the world will too.