Publishers Weekly
★ 04/01/2024
This masterful psychological horror novel from bestselling YA author Yoon (Everything, Everything) brings to bear all the claustrophobia of Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives against the backdrop of systemic racism and police brutality. When pregnant lawyer Jasmyn Williams, her husband, King, and their son, Kamau, move to Liberty, an upscale, all-Black enclave outside of Los Angeles, Jasmyn is excited to join a community that seems to have it all—safety, stability, and a wellness culture centered on a spa that Liberty’s residents organize their lives around. Then Jasmyn realizes how cloistered the community is from ongoing racial injustices, including the recent police shooting of a Black man and his daughter. As she digs deeper into the workings of Liberty’s leadership and the nature of the treatments offered at the wellness center, she uncovers a horrifying secret that, once revealed, threatens both her life and her sense of self as a Black woman in America. 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. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House. (June)
From the Publisher
One of Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Most Anticipated Mystery/Thriller of the Spring
"[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."
—Marion Winik, Oprah Daily
"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."
—The New York Times
"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."
—Shannon Carlin, TIME
“With haunting and powerful prose, Nicola Yoon brilliantly imagines a world with much to tell us about our own.”
—John Green, New York Times best-selling author of Turtles All the Way Down
“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.”
—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Wish You Were Here
“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.”
—Ashley C. Ford, New York Times best-selling author of Somebody’s Daughter
"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?"
—The Seattle Times
"[One of Our Kind] is set in a newly planned utopian community for Black Americans in California....As with all utopias, usually, things aren't exactly as they seem....For fans of dystopian fiction, this is a great fast-paced read."
—Jordan Lauf, WNYC
“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.”
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED
“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.”
—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED
“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.”
—Booklist, STARRED
“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.”
—BookPage
Library Journal
05/01/2024
YA author (Instructions for Dancing) Yoon's first adult novel examines themes of identity, privilege, and social justice. Attorney and social justice activist Jasmyn Williams and her husband Kingston have finally bought a house in Liberty, a wealthy Black community outside of Los Angeles. Jasmyn knows her husband and young son will be safer walking the streets in Liberty, where all the police officers are Black, than in their old working-class neighborhood. But almost immediately she feels that something is not quite right there. Jasmyn becomes aware of the differences between herself and her neighbors. While she embraces her natural hair and Black Power ideas, her neighbors seem set upon a conformity that makes Jasmyn increasingly uneasy. When Kingston begins spending time at the community's secretive and heavily guarded wellness center, Jasmyn notices his growing apathy for the social justice causes the couple once championed. Feeling ever more troubled, Jasmyn turns to new friends Keisha and Charles, whose own spouses have also changed dramatically since moving to Liberty. As she works to uncover the truth, Jasmyn confronts the grim secrets beneath Liberty's impeccable facade. VERDICT At times unsettling, Yoon's narrative is a thought-provoking exploration of race and identity in modern society.—Lucinda Ward
