(S)Kin

Starred review from December 1, 2024
Two teens, one a Black girl from the Caribbean and one a Black biracial girl from Brooklyn, struggle to find their identities. Fifteen-year-old Marisol and her mother, Lourdes, have recently settled in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. They are soucouyant, witches who shed their skins during the new moon and "sip from / a soul," nourishing themselves through the life force of their enemies. But the American dream Mummy is seeking doesn't include freedom for Marisol, who feels "forever alone." Monthly she shape-shifts, igniting her firesoul and shedding a layer of the skin--"Black, girl, poor, and immigrant"--given to her in America. Seventeen-year-old Genevieve lives with her white anthropologist father, white stepmother, and twin half siblings. She dreams of her mother, a Black woman who's a mystery, and struggles with her skin, which feels like it will "burn and melt," itching "like a billion tiny needles." The girls' worlds collide when Lourdes is hired as a nanny by Genevieve's stepmother. Marisol and Genevieve are two sides of the same coin, both reaching for maternal connections, and soon, loyalties in their families and within themselves will be tested. The girls' intertwined tales, blurring and shifting over the course of the narrative, unfold in lyrical alternating first-person verse and are cleverly used to discuss beauty ideals and colorism. Readers will enjoy the ways the monstrous characters' human facades shift unexpectedly. A vividly creative, heart-pounding poetic journey infused with Caribbean folklore.(Verse fantasy. 14-18)

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Starred review from January 1, 2025
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Ever since she could remember, it has been Marisol and her mother. The two attempt to eke out a life in Brooklyn while keeping their true identities hidden. They're soucouyants, or shape-shifters, who rely on the life force of others. After being kicked out of their home and fired from their shared job, Marisol and her mother find unlikely employment with Genevieve's family. Genevieve is biracial but never knew her mother. She just knows that her white father has an obsession with Caribbean culture and that her white stepmother can't look at her without seeing her father's betrayal. Marisol's mother moves into the home to help care for Genevieve's infant siblings, but Genevieve can't help but notice that there is something different about the new nanny and her daughter. While they are different in age, cultural upbringing, and appearance, Marisol and Genevieve both have to grapple with their jealousy and powerful magic. Zoboi's novel in verse is bold and exciting; employing alternating perspectives, the author plays with language and the book's format to craft fully realized characters by exploring their envies and desires. Readers will fly through Zoboi's latest masterpiece and crave more stories featuring Caribbean folklore. An ambitious contemporary fantasy that will grip readers from the first page.

COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2025
In this verse novel with a basis in Caribbean folklore, fifteen-year-old Marisol and her mother, Lourdes, have recently emigrated from the Caribbean to Brooklyn. The two are soucouyant, shapeshifting "monsters" who shed their skin during the new moon to feed on the souls of their enemies. As a poor Black immigrant girl, Marisol finds that the world she inhabits sees her as monstrous in more ways than one. Seventeen-year-old Genevieve, by contrast, has lived in New York her whole life with her white father and stepmother (she has a Black biological mother). Although she enjoys privileges such as wealth, light skin, and U.S. citizenship, Genevieve feels trapped in her own body: enflamed rashes make her feel like her skin "will burn and melt / right off my fucking bones." The two girls' lives intersect when Lourdes is hired as a full-time nanny by Genevieve's stepmother for her newborn twins, and they come to realize that despite their very different upbringings, their worlds are more interconnected than they could have imagined. Expressive verse alternates between Marisol and Genevieve's perspectives, with judicious shifts in placement emphasizing connections between them. In a story that explores class, nationalism, colorism, colonialism, and ancestry, Zoboi skillfully captures the complexities of identity and belonging, offering a powerful narrative about two girls struggling to understand who they are and where they come from. S. R. Toliver

(Copyright 2025 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)