"One of Our Kind" by Nicola Yoon is a gripping page-turner that delves deep into the heart of race in America. It's worth reading for the emotional resonance of the characters, but doesn't dive much deeper than it's promised premise of "Get Out meets Stepford Wives".

I can't speak on the Black experience, so I encourage you to read reviews by Black individuals.

There are a lot of comparisons to Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives, and it's not just the theme--One of Our Kind follows The Stepford Wives almost beat for beat, modernizing the story and trading gender for race. No problem with that, I'm all for updating the classics, and One of Our Kind has a grim ending that reflects The Stepford Wives' ending.

Some of my issues:
* Yoon really holds your hand through the whole book. The ending is basically told to you in the first few chapters.
* Jasmyn and King have a son, Kamau, who disappears when his presence isn't needed. I don't need an accounting of every minute of his life, but at least don't leave us wondering!

One of Our Kind feels like a 2020s reimagining of The Stepford Wives, a 1970s book in which a woman who moves to an upscale community realizes that there is something terribly wrong with all the wives, who seem too perfect to be true.

One of Our Kind had some interesting elements, with the story replacing a Black woman and her family moving into a upscale Black community where everyone seems a bit off. But by the end I was pretty confused about what point the author was trying to make. Without spoilers it is hard to say more. While I loved the idea of this reimagining, and maybe it will spark some interesting book club discussions.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

One of our Kind by Nicola Yoon is a third person-POV speculative thriller exploring race and privilege. When Jasmyn and her husband, King, move to the all-Black gated community of Liberty, Jasmyn has a few concerns and those concerns only grow the longer she stays. Something's not right in Liberty or in the rest of America.

Jasmyn is a lawyer and an activist, doing a lot for her community by showing up to protests and vigils and looking to set up a BLM chapter in Liberty. Her work and the news often show her the worst parts of anti-Black racism in America, but she refuses to stop fighting. When members of the Liberty community push back on this, we get to see not only differing opinions, but Jasmyn’s internal monologue towards that pushback. This gets further complicated when Jasmyn is frustrated with a community member for not wanting to join a vigil for a survivor of police brutality only to learn that said community member’s brother was murdered by the police when she was a teenager.

King sometimes accuses Jasmyn of being judgemental and expecting all Black Americans to think the exact same way. It's both frustrating and reflective of reality. On the one hand, yes, marginalized communities are allowed to have differing opinions and we should welcome diverse thought and perspectives within our communities to make sure we're doing the right things and focusing on what's important instead of policing each other into one ‘correct’ way. But, at times, it does feel a bit dismissive when King focuses on that particular aspect when Jasmyn is really trying to point out that something feels wrong.

My favorite parts were Jasmyn's moments with her young son. He's full of joy and innocence and we can see her and King wanting to protect that innocence while being painfully aware of the world outside their house.

The Stepford Wives meets Get Out premise works extremely well for a thriller and kept me engaged throughout to see what Jasmyn was going to do next. I really appreciated the emphasis on Black hair and how that informed Jasmyn's initial impression of others while also pointing out how Black hair was viewed for a long time as unprofessional in many workplaces.

I would recommend this to readers of thrillers with strong social commentary, fans of the film Get Out, and those looking for a novel that delves into the POV of a Black mother trying to make a safe place for her children.

This book is difficult to review. I was unsettled by it, found a lot of it to be problematic, yet enjoyed it for what it was. At the heart of this book is the discussion of blackness in America and the injustices of the system compared to that of whiteness. One of the characters is very vocal and pushy about her activism and support of groups such as BLM, almost in an over the top way. And then there are characters who avoid discussion of anything negative or surrounding racism, again in an over the top way that sometimes comes across as anti-black. It seemed to me to be a look at the spectrum that is blackness and how it’s not just the color of your skin that makes you black but also the experiences you have, how you’re treated, etc. The ending was troubling and wild and heartbreaking. Overall I enjoyed this book.

I have been a fan of Yoon's YA work and was excited to see that she was publishing her first adult novel.

Jasmine & King purchase a new house in Liberty, California - an all Black neighborhood, hyped as a Black utopia. This book was a quick read, but it left me wondering about the premise. The first half of the book seems like a social justice piece about race and culture. The second half is more mystery/thriller about changes in the residents of Liberty. I'm not really sure what the intention behind this book was. It left me with a negative connotation of the Black families in the novel, feeling as if they were trying to erase their Blackness. It seemed to value assimilation over cultural pride and I do not think this was the author's intention.

🎬 Read this if you like:
Get Out
Don’t Worry Darling
⏰ Best time to read:
When you’ve had enough of respectability politics
📝 Themes:
Psychological Thriller, Horror, Race & Racism, Suburbia, Black Nationalism, Family, Blackness & Identity, Community
👍 What I liked:
One of Our Kind has a fantastic, haunting conclusion. This book is also a warning against apathy, and a clarion call for community care and never forgetting where you came from.
❓ Synopsis: Jasmyn Williams is a Black woman and public defender living in L.A. with her husband King and son Kamau. Starting from nothing, the family uses their new money to move to a Black utopian suburb called Liberty. Here, Jasmyn hopes to leave racism behind. But the residents of Liberty seem overly focused on self rather than community care. When even those like-minded to herself begin to convert, Jasmyn wonders whether moving to Liberty was a grave mistake.
📣 Review: One of Our Kind is a creepy horror thriller that dives deep into what it means to be Black in America. While at times predictable and on the nose, some readers might also take issue with how expressions of Black identity are discussed by the MC (who serves as the foil to her apathetic neighbors). Yet, the book’s lesson is an important one. Love it or hate it, you’ll be thinking about this book long after the final page.

This was billed as The Stepford Wives meets Get Out which was pretty spot on. This was such an interesting and dark read. While this starts slow, it did pick up and I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen to Jasmyn and King. I enjoyed the light horror aspects in this one and definitely was shocked by the ending. This is one I won’t forget soon - I do think it will have readers divided and will bring lots of great discussions.

I want to preface this review by stating the obvious: my opinion should be taken with a giant white woman sized grain of salt. Before you read (or instead of reading) my review, please consider those of Goodreads reviewers Casey R. Kelley (59741075-casey-r-kelley), Erin (5638070-erin), and Shanice (58552466-shanice).

This book was incredibly disappointing. As stated, it's a Stepford Wives meets Get Out racial horror story about a Black utopian suburb of LA where all is not what it seems. Jasmyn, King, and their son Kamau move to Liberty to escape racism, specifically police brutality. Jasmyn, a public defender, feels strongly about bearing witness to acts of racism; she watches all the videos of police violence no matter how difficult. King mentors at risk boys through a program in LA. When they move to Liberty, Jasmyn is surprised and unnerved by how blase everyone seems about racism. No one seems affected like she is and everyone seems more interested in wellness and self care. The novel progresses to its big reveal.

My problems:
Either this whole book is satire (in which case it just doesn't quite work), or it's wildly anti Black. Yoon seems to think that there is only one way to be a good Black person, and it is to be constantly steeped in trauma. To take time for joy, healing, self preservation, or anything other than rage and activism is to be a traitor.

While the conversation about eurocentric beauty ideals is certainly a valid one in the world of anti Black racism, I don't think the solution is the denigration of those (mainly women!) who choose different styles than the protagonist. Nearly absent from Yoon's critique is a look at the structural forces behind those eurocentric trends, instead she focuses on individual choice and how those choices make Black people (again, mainly women) bad Black people.

Furthermore, Yoon doesn't seem to acknowledge that joy and self care are in and of themselves a mode of resistance and political radicalism. Audre Lorde herself said "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare." In Yoon's world, to take time for yourself; to take time for joy and happiness for the sake of happiness, is not only wasteful, but antithetical to Blackness. Unless I've grievously missed the point (which I may have; I acknowledge that this book may just not have been meant for me) this is heartbreaking.

I would not recommend this because I think it's honestly damaging and hurtful.

Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to the concept of this one. It kept my interest for a good portion of it, but the last 1/4 just felt so rushed and underdeveloped. The characters were often unlikeable, but I'm pretty sure that was due to the satirical nature of the story.

Speculative horror with scathing social commentary? Sign me up. Unfortunately I struggled to connect with any of the characters. The premise is so intriguing and Yoon’s writing is usually so crisp (I’m a big fan of her YA work) that I was super excited to start reading. I continued reading with the hope it would grab my attention.

It may be a case of the wrong book at the wrong time for the wrong reader, so I intend to revisit this book in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the chance to read an advance copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

This book will ring familiar to many readers who are older or who are movie watchers.

Jasmyn and her husband King have moved to a Utopian community where only black people live and work. They want a safe environment to raise their young son and the baby that Jasmyn is carrying. The community is a planned community and the home are gorgeous. But the people Jasmyn are meeting don't seem to care about racism or their black heritage. Even King is more interested in the wellness spa than in their previous activities.

Jasmyn also misses the Black culture of her previous life because it isn't in her new community. Slowly, the horror of watching her few friends start acting more "white" is too much for Jasmyn to bear

Provocative Social Commentary – Fascinating Read

This novel is Yoon’s fourth book and the first written for adults. It is sharply crafted and offers an inquisitive reader a page turner from the first page to the last. I was not always enamored with each section, but I felt that there would be a twist, and I had to keep reading.

The main character is Jasmyn Williams, a public defender, married to Kingston Williams, a newly successful venture capitalist who also mentors at-risk youth. They have a six year old son, Kamau. Jasmyn is pregnant with another boy. They seem to have a solid marriage. Kingston convinces his wife to move to Liberty, a Black only community in a suburb of Los Angeles. Jasmyn is reticent about the move. She is not materialistic; her goal is to help people and have a strong, loving family.

They move into a mansion in Liberty, very expensive with promises of a luxurious life where her family can thrive. Jasmyn does not fit the mold. She is an attorney who aids the oppressed Black population. She expected Liberty to be a community of liberals who also were seeking justice. Not so. Inundated with spa treatments and expensive parties are not her cup to tea. She has difficulty finding friends of the same mind, but she does find some like-minded women who seem to have her philosophy.

Her husband, “King,” is patient with her while he encourages her to take part in the Wellness program and acclimate to this wealthy environment. Jasmyn is reticent and this restrained behavior begins to annoy her husband and her close friends. She is soon to deliver her second son and the author brings all the factors to a startling crescendo. It is unrestrained literary fiction. This is a Black Lives Matter main character living in another world with alternate beliefs.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Knopf for this pre-published book. All opinions expressed are my own.

Jasmyn, her husband King, and their son Kamau move to Liberty - an all Black community that claims to be a utopia. She's pregnant with their second son, a public defender, someone looking out for community and how they give back, and trying to find her place in their new suburb. The further you get into the story, you know that something is very, very wrong in Liberty. Jasmyn has to not only believe it, but figure it out, before it's too late.

The way the tension builds in this book is fantastic - as more and more information is revealed about the founders of Liberty and their backstories, the more people around Jasmyn change with no explanation, the way she's gaslit by everyone around her so many times...the dread just pools in your stomach. I don't know why this is being called a thriller because it's a horror novel, straight up.

While some of the things in this book are not possible, it's important to remember that every incident referred to here between a Black person and police, with a school district, with a hospital, are right from the headlines. I could think of real people for every fictional amalgamation in these pages. The people in the book are not real - the things they describe happening to them and their loved ones are facts.

In this speculative fiction / social horror novel, Jasmyn and Kingston Williams and their little son Kamau have just moved into Liberty, the exclusive Black community in California. Everyone in Liberty is Black: the residents, the teachers, the police, everyone. King takes to the Liberty way of life immediately, but Jasmyn is slower to adapt, finding Liberty isn’t at all what she imagined it would be. Does something more sinister lurk beneath Liberty’s utopian façade?

I’ve been sitting with my thoughts on this one for a few days, because my feelings are so mixed. The novel’s concept is ambitious and thought-provoking, messy and uncomfortable and taking on important themes. The story gripped me immediately and I devoured it in less than 24 hours. But maybe that’s the problem. Nicola Yoon had such a great, creepy idea here but didn’t really give it enough room to grow. It had so much potential but ultimately felt rushed, especially at the conclusion, and left me wishing for more depth. Speaking of more depth, the characters overall are rather flat and underdeveloped. Jasmyn’s passion for social justice and “Blacker-than-thou” attitude come off as one-dimensional and judgmental. Although that may have been Yoon’s intent, more nuanced characters would have made this a richer, more compelling story. That said, I still think this is a worthwhile read that would make for some fascinating book club discussion.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for providing me an advanced copy of this book.

This review contains spoilers:

I've been struggling with how to write this review and rate this book--on the one hand, I found it enthralling despite some pacing issues, on the other hand, there are incisive critiques about how the author treats race. I am not Black, so I encourage you to read reviews written by Black readers because this book runs heavy with themes of racism and anti-blackness that I do not have the lived experience to speak to.

Public Defender Jasmyn who is pregnant with her second child, her husband King, and their son Kamau have moved from a modest apartment in LA to a palatial mansion in Liberty, an affluent, all-Black neighborhood whose property values rival Beverly Hills.

Kamau is in a great school and Jasmyn has a beautiful home, but she is unsettled: King is spending less time mentoring Black youth and more time at the wellness center and she can't seem to find like-minded friends who are willing to do the work.

Eventually, Jasmyn meets Keisha and Charles and they form plans to create a Black Lives Matter chapter in Liberty. But no one will join her. And when Keisha and Charles change their hair, get plastic surgery for more eurocentric features, and lose interest in activism, Jasmyn is determined to get her and her family out of Liberty before it happens to them too.

The main critiques of this novel are Jasmyn's colorism and considering suffering essential to Black identity, as well as the community of Liberty treating being white as a solution to all problems. I think it's important to note that a character's attitude does not necessarily reflect an authors opinion.

Jasmyn's colorism and her treatment of trauma as essential to Black identity and experience has consequences--it alienates her from her community and causes discord in her friendships, even outside Liberty. In contrast, her friend Tricia hold says she's going to teach her own unborn child about Black joy and contributions to the culture in addition to the realities of being Black in America and its history.

There are also consequences of whiteness as well: Jasmyn is wiped of her memories, her personality, and most crucially she loses her close relationship with Kamau. He goes from being respectful and closely connected to his mom to neither of those things which illustrate part of the massive cost of becoming white.

I believe this book tried to be a critique of Ibram X. Kendi's Assimilationist vs. Anti-Racist methods and viewpoints, class, and color, but its execution fell flat and was harmful to some of its most important readers. I appreciate what Nicola Yoon attempted, but read it with care and a critical eye.

A bit of a horror novel. Reminds me of Stepford Wives or a recent movie. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

A quick and riveting book about a family that moves to an LA suburb that is marketed as a Black-only utopia, but everything is not as it seems. Very Don’t Worry Darling meets Get Out vibes.

I enjoyed the characters, the pacing, and loved the twist at the end. I think it’s rare to see a fiction novel that confronts racism and social justice issues while also being utterly readable with some funny moments thrown in.

Thank you Knopf and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Knopf and NetGalley for an electronic advanced readers copy of this novel.

Jasmine and her family have finally made it in their eyes. They have progressed in their careers enough to afford to buy a new place in Liberty, a planned all-black community. Excited to start their new lives, Jasmine and her husband try to fit into their new environment. But Jasmine soon feels like something is wrong. Used to being able to talk about the black experience and issues, she finds that her new neighbors have little interest or reaction to the terrible things happening in the news - are they just privileged enough not to care anymore? Or is something else going on?

One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon is a departure from her previous works - I've only read her YA offerings. This is not a YA title where the stakes are different and people are coming of age. It was well written and hard to describe without spoiling things. I can see how it's not for everyone. It was interesting and thought provoking, a what if. But, not giving spoilers again, it veers towards the fantastical.

This story was hard for me to get into which is disappointing because I loved the summary when I read it. Jasmyn was unlikeable for me from the very first chapter. She came off like she was better than others because she likes to give back to the community and frowned down to others that didn’t the same as she does. She was so judgmental to those that did self care, relaxed their hair (& im not bias because I’m also a natural like Jasmyn) or went to the spa. Like huh?? This story had so much potential I was excited to read it! I loved the idea of black utopia and things are going to take a turn for the worse, but having to basically live in Jasmyn’s head was exhausting. This book could have really been a game changer because of the creative plot, I was looking forward to a black psychological thriller but it honestly missed its mark. It came off heavily anti black, depressing, & just didn’t give the way I thought it was going to. Now this author has a great writing style, she definitely has skills so I may check out her YA books but this one in particular wasn’t for me. Although I didn’t enjoy this one in particular I think it would be a great for group discussions. I’m sure others may enjoy it, it’s a 2.5 read for me. Thankful for the complimentary copy & in return this is my honest review.