Review: The Darkest Child

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Publisher: Soho Press

Release Date:  January 1, 2005

Paperback: 462 pages

Buy the Book: Amazon

Rozelle Quinn is so fair-skinned that she can pass for white. Her ten children are mostly light, too. They constitute the only world she rules and controls. Her power over them is all she has in an otherwise cruel and uncaring universe.

Rozelle favors her light-skinned kids, but Tangy Mae, 13, her darkest-complected child, is the brightest. She desperately wants to continue with her education. Her mother, however, has other plans. Rozelle wants her daughter to work cleaning houses for whites, like she does, and accompany her to the “Farmhouse,” where Rozelle earns extra money bedding men. Tangy Mae, she’s decided, is of age.

Mocha Girls Tigg’s Review:  I rarely give 5 stars in my reviews, but this book was definitely deserving of that and so much more!! Ms. Phillips spun a tragically beautiful story had me captivated from the first page, I was so angry when I had to put it down to go to work. It reminded me of my grandmother, she was from New Orleans and once told me that she ran away from home because her mother tried to sell her off at the age of 13 to an older man for a cow. It’s deplorable how young black women and girls were undervalued and treated back then. I never wanted it to end. I don’t want to give too much away, but read this book.

Mocha Girls Tahmeka’s Review:  I wanted to love this book but it never really came together for me. The characters had potential to be great but they weren’t fleshed out. I think there were too many. Mattie, Harvey, the white lady that Tan worked for (I can’t think of her name), Skeeter, Jeff,… the list goes on. So many people who weren’t relevant to the story.
I think that the secondary plot, the county in the beginning phases of integration, was too much. The main plot was intense enough.
This book could have been perfection had the author spent more time with the characters. I don’t feel like there was enough.

Mocha Girl Pearl’s Review: I am giving this five stars because it was well written, although this was the most painful and emotional novel I have read in a long time, she described the events and characters with such detail and definition. I was so hoping for a happy ending and it almost was one, but the only happiness is that one day Tangy Mae will look by and be happy the she and Laura made it out of Pakersfield. I am still to emotional to even write a review.