Summary and Reviews of One of Our Kind by Nicola Yoon

Media Reviews

BookPage The paradoxes and discontents of the upwardly mobile Black bourgeoisie are territory the Jamaican-born, wildly successful Yoon knows intimately and draws with precision. Like Kiley Reid (Such a Fun Age and Come and Get It), Yoon vividly captures the racial and political zeitgeist… [A] potent illustration of the effects of racial trauma…Bold and razor sharp.

New York Times A slow-burn thriller that crosses the cinematic vectors of Get Out and Stepford Wives in a story about a young family that moves to a prosperous Black community, only to find that all is not as utopian as it seems.

Oprah Daily [An] intense, politically charged thriller set at a gated Black community in Los Angeles, where Jasmyn Williams and her husband, King, learn that the wounds of police brutality and racism affect different people in very different ways. Some just want to wrap themselves in luxury and spa treatments—if that's what's really going on at the community's cultish wellness palace. Truly chilling.

The Seattle Times Provocative…Sure to spark book club conversations for years to come. Who says you can't tackle big, important contemporary ideas in a page-turning thriller?

Time Magazine An unsettling social thriller that is Get Out meets Rosemary's Baby. One of Our Kind…is set in Liberty, Calif., a fictional idyllic all-Black gated community outside of Los Angeles. Jasmyn, a public defender expecting her second child, moves there with her venture capitalist husband and their young son looking for a place where they can feel safe and supported. What she finds isn't the Black utopia she dreamed of, but a town more interested in self-care than social justice issues. When Jasmyn starts digging into the community's history, she uncovers a shocking secret about Liberty's founders that threatens to tear her family apart.

Booklist (starred review) Yoon steadily builds suspense and provocation in this chilling, subtly speculative tale via perfectly selected details and unnerving conversations...In the mode of Percival Everett, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, and Rion Amilcar Scott, Yoon presents a riveting tale spiked with surprises, laced with compassion, and designed for discussion as it raises unsettling questions about class, Blackness, parenthood, social responsibility, justice, and the hidden repercussions of deep, centuries-spanning trauma.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Yoon is skilled at sustaining the tension throughout Jasmyn's investigations, exposing the ways that Black communities are undermined both internally and externally. It's an artful page-turning thriller, but constantly mindful that decisions about community and identity can put lives at stake. A bracing tale of the perils of groupthink and willful ignorance.

Publishers Weekly (starred review) Masterful...Yoon maintains taut, nerve-shattering suspense throughout as she delves into societal fault lines and cultural anxieties, crafting a brutally effective examination of how generational trauma roots itself in the body. The dialogue in particular shines as the characters argue, sympathize, and search for connection with one another, even in the face of the terror that surrounds them. Yoon's latest will linger in readers' minds long after its horrifying conclusion.

Library Journal At times unsettling, Yoon's narrative is a thought-provoking exploration of race and identity in modern society.

 Ashley C. Ford, New York Times best-selling author of Somebody's Daughter Nicola Yoon can write about any subject beautifully, but what she's done in One of Our Kind is as thrilling as it is lusciously written. I can't remember the last time a book kept me turning the pages so quickly, or kept me up so late. One of Our Kind is for readers who want to be taken to the edge of expectation, and solidly dropped into the middle of a new nightmare. I still have goosebumps.

 Jodi Picoult, number one New York Times best-selling author of Wish You Were Here Brilliant, provocative, seminal — there aren't enough adjectives to describe how much food for thought Yoon's novel provided.  When cultural identity is shaped by trauma, can you even imagine who you are when that trauma is excised?  What is the difference between equality and equity?  And how deep into the magma of racism does implicit bias go?  Your book club will be discussing this one for DAYS.

 John Green, New York Times best-selling author of Turtles All the Way Down With haunting and powerful prose, Nicola Yoon brilliantly imagines a world with much to tell us about our own.

Reader Reviews

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