Jones maintains a light touch and a gift for effortless portraiture ... Such is the bittersweet power of fiction, that it can braid two friends’ lives together, bridging their separation. When the two women reunite, the novel makes good on the promise of its title, testing the bonds and boundaries of the kin we choose ... [Jones'] repertoire of characters feels inexhaustible, in the best way — as if she could go on for decades populating her fictional universe with women and men at once wholly unique and also bound by their author’s sensibility and purpose. When reading Kin, I wanted nothing more than to keep reading it.
With understated force, Ms. Jones captures the systemic racism of the Jim Crow era in the years when the civil-rights movement was gaining momentum ... Loyalties and fortitude are repeatedly tested in this immersive drama. Resilience abounds.
While some writers lead with a strong beginning only to grow slack as the novel wears on, struggling to land the ending, Jones is the opposite. Her momentum picks up steam as it goes ... Confident ... As the novel’s turbulent action finds an affecting and spectral finale, we’re left with an abiding undercurrent of platonic love as Jones forges a graceful dignity for Niecy and Annie.
An exploration of self-discovery, the brutality of racism and inequality, and above all else, a study of sisterhood, motherhood, and the unconditional love found in those relationships ... Beautiful.
[Jones'] smooth prose and light touch direct our attention to the bond between the girls, for whom this is simply life. And although this is historical fiction, we’re immersed in the perspective of teens with their whole futures in front of them. The tone is fittingly hopeful and expansive ... Humor is a powerful strategy both in this book and, indeed, throughout Black history ... Jones has served up an enjoyable and engrossing novel with love at its core.
Kin’s leaning into the expected makes the novel good, not great. While I enjoyed Jones’s prose and occasionally profound sentences, by the end I was disappointed by the erosion of any subversiveness as the book always veers back to traditional upper-middle-class mores.
Jones...knows how to write the intricacies of intimate relationships; complex ties within families and marriages abound in her stories ... Shows off Jones's considerable skill through strong pacing and a plot that is emotionally taut without feeling unnecessarily dramatic ... Brilliant.
