MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewWhile the driving question of the novel is meant to be what will become of their friendship, the story is most affecting when the women are apart ... There are many intriguing facets of this relationship that might have further been explored, including the fraught, delicate class tensions between them...Instead, the novel gets bogged down in its reproduction of familiar lines about race ... The characters dispense the usual talking points, and the dialogue yields evidence of a divided America for any reader who isn’t yet convinced ... In the thick of the commentary, and Jen and Riley’s back-and-forth, our sense of Justin and of his mother, Tamara, get short shrift ... The details are endearing, vivid, but they aren’t enough to make Justin or his mother real, fully dimensional. He is a victim; she is a victim and survivor. Their losses are no more than the inciting incident for the drama between two friends, who by the end of the novel, have only just admitted there is a lot they need to talk about.
