How I Found: Sitting at the bottom of a pile of books lent by a friend, I'm glad I inadvertently saved this one for last. This novel covers the lives of twin girls, both remarkably light-skinned even in a town which prides itself on this trait revealing how even when our skin color doesn't give us away our heritage still holds power over us.
Why You Might Read: As the twins Stella and Desiree become women, their lives divide and reveal how our choices influence our life just as much as our past, though, and we are reminded, "Memory works that way—like seeing forward and backward at the same time." But this novel isn't just about our individual memory, but our collective one and how we must reconcile where we came from with where we are going.

How I Found: As a farm girl, I was enticed by the sky blue cover with golden stalks of wheat, and I wasn't disappointed to discover characters like Elsa and her in-laws who also feel intrinsically tied to the land that raised them. This novel, though, is about moving on, letting go, and recognizing our failures as humans.
Why You Might Read: By focusing on the Great Depression, the dust bowl, and migration, this book is prescient: when the farmers won't acknowledge their role in disturbing the soil, when the migrants are believed to carry diseases and are shunned by their employers, when the workers are too fearful to unionize. This book is a reminder to look to the past in order to learn from those failures---"As we know, there are lessons to be learned from history. Hope to be derived from hardships faced before. We've gone through bad times before and survived, even thrived. History has shown us the strength and durability of the human spirit, In the end, it is our idealism and our courage and our commitment to one another--what we have in common--that will save us."

How I Found: Passed on to me by another lover of Alvarez’s books, I carried this one with me for months, then it read it in hours. Surprisingly brief, like life, we read of Antonia’s experience as a widow among a sisterhood that both supports and entangles her as she tries to generate an afterlife for her late husband.
Why You Might Read: Antonia’s immigrant experience isn’t detailed, but she lives among undocumented workers whose fear of being discovered reveals her own assimilation which she analyzes like the novels and poems she taught throughout her career. She uses others words when she has none of her own for the inexplicable, beautiful, and heart-wrenching events that are her life. Ultimately, we are left knowing, “[Life] tells a story. That it has been broken.”

How I Found:  Seeking a perspective beyond my limited life experiences, I came across this book that pulled me in with its title and colorful cover.  Little did I know that I would go on a journey through twelve black, British women's lives who became interconnected in striking and unexpected ways.  More importantly, though, was the moment that reality shifted, and I realized how much my perspective differed from these women.  For me, that was when Winsome lists her favorite authors, "Olive Senior from Jamaica, Rosa Guy from Trinidad, Pauly Marshal from Barbados, Jamaica Kincaid from Antigua, and Maryse Condé from Guadalupe; her favorite poetry book is called I is a Long Memoried Woman by a Guyanese lady called Grace Nichols We the Women Whose Praises Go Unsung Whose Voices Go Unheard."  Of these authors, I had only read from one and heard of none of the others.  Winsome then goes on to list several white authors, all of whom I had heard of and read from. 
Why You Might Read:  To see how this book might broaden your perspective and shift your reality.  With twelve characters to follow, it almost certainly will.  Winsome goes on to explain that, "She and the reading group had a big argument, no it wasn't no argument, it was a debate the other day about whether a poem was good because they related to it or whether it was good in and of itself."  As an avid reader, I've come to the understanding that it isn't about whether or not you see yourself in the book, but whose eyes you can learn to see through.  The characters of books are as wild and varied as the humans in the world; without reading we just get the one life, with it we can seek to understand and live as many lives as books we care to open, and this one lead me to author's I look forward to getting acquainted with and twelve new friends I'll never forget.