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The entire time I was reading this book, I kept envisioning it as a miniseries on a streaming platform, so that is how I will structure this review.

Episode One
In episode one, we meet the key characters, beginning with 25-year-old Emira Tucker. Since graduating from college, Emira has tried several different careers, but nothing seems to be truly fulfilling. To make ends meet, she works part-time as a typist for the Green Party Offices and part-time as a babysitter for The Chamberlain family.

The second main character is white, middle-class Alix Chamberlain, who runs a successful business and blog on teaching women confidence, yet she is insecure with her life choices.

This episode leaves us with a cliffhanger as we see Emira at the grocery store with toddler Briar at 11 pm after responding to a request from Alix to take the child out of the house while her parents make a report to the police on something being thrown at the home. In the grocery store, Emira has her own situation with a security guard after a concerned shopper accuses her of kidnapping Briar. A bystander, who turns out to be our third main character, Kelley Copeland, films the whole exchange.

Episode Two
In episode two, we see the aftermath of the grocery store incident. Emira wants nothing more than to put the whole situation behind her. She is more focused on figuring out how to shower affection on Briar (who is largely ignored by Alix) and how to maintain health insurance after she gets kicked off her parents� policy on her upcoming birthday.

Alix sees the situation as a wake-up call to how little she truly knows Emira and makes a commitment to get to know her better. She does everything she can to “connect� with Emira, even going so far as to constantly check Emira’s phone and read the notifications displayed on the lock screen. She also tries to help Emira figure out her life and gives advice, believing she is empowering Emira when she is, in fact, doing the opposite.

Emira runs into Kelley while taking the train, and when he asks her out, they begin dating. What Emira doesn’t know is that Kelley and Alix used to date in high school. In addition, she will come to find that Alix has her own complicated history with race relations and that Alix believes Kelley has his reasons for fetishizing black people/culture.

In episode three, we see how these interwoven characters have come to affect each other's lives and the choices they are forced to make. We also see the video release of the grocery store incident and how this affects all of our main characters.

The parts of the book that are really good force us to examine the ways in which we, or those around us, may be acting like Alix or Kelley. The parts of the book that brought this down to a 3-star rating were the abrupt ending, the overall conclusions to the main characters� stories, and the detached and, at times, forced dialogue.

Nice review, Hayjay! I like how you structured it in episodes. I had similar feelings about the book.

I also love how you wrote your review. Very nice!