Tayari Jones’ poignantly titled novel Kin digs into the tenderest and most deeply felt meaning of the word. Growing up in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, Annie and Niecy both lost their mothers when they were far too young to understand. Annie is brash and outgoing while Niecy is pensive and withdrawn, but their mutual grief forges a connection between them that’s more powerful and intimate than they share with anyone else. It’s a beautiful, heart-wrenching experience to follow these young Black women as they travel their own diverging paths out into the world of the 1950s and ’60s American South. Even throughout Annie’s sometimes-reckless vagabond search for the mother who abandoned her and Niecy’s eye-opening experiences with class disparities and the civil rights movement at college, their lifelong bond stretches—but never breaks. A story of spiritual sisterhood and surrogate motherhood, Kin is heartbreaking in the best possible way.

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