As a lifelong Missouri resident (from the Kansas City area, to be more specific,) this story really hits home for me. At first, I thought this was based on the Kansas City, Missouri school district losing its accreditation several years ago, students from that district having the option to transfer to surrounding districts and how people in these more affluent areas, mostly white people, were absolutely losing their minds. What was said by some of them in addition to some of the things said in the districts on which this story is based and indeed, in the story itself, is a sad reminder of how far we still have to go. I would suggest…
No, highly recommend all people who read this book, especially white people not only read it, but as is stated in the author’s note at the end, start talking about it and start doing your part, which is a major one, to fix this broken system.
The performance/narration wasn’t terrible by any means. Georgina Marie had great voices for characters like Jenn, Camille, her gossiping group of prissy, upper middle class moms and her daughters, Paige and Taylor; translation, she has good voices for the white characters. If they wanted someone who could give all the characters a voice though, black and white, Bahni Turpin would’ve been a better choice. Georgina can tell a story, but this particular story should have been narrated by someone with a wider range of voices and Bahni would have really delivered there.
Great development for all three of the main characters and honestly, I wouldn’t mind if Katie Ganshert were to do a sort of follow up to this story. I’d love to see these characters continue to grow.