Deploying multiple voices does diminish the depth of character development, but Coster’s cast of characters is unique, creating a tapestry that allows the various individuals to explore a past they may try to escape but can’t leave behind completely. Despite its sprawling time line and multiple perspectives, the novel remains an intimate portrait of families shaped by love, motherhood, race, and class.
... the book's many plot lines radiate around an integration plan that brings students from the predominantly Black east side into the high school of the mostly white west ... The book's rangy unfolding takes place from the early 1990s to the present day and hopscotches back and forth from the suburbs of Atlanta to Paris to Los Angeles to the small Southern city of Noelle and Gee's youth. The point of view rotates from one character to another, allowing Coster to depict their complex situations and moral ambiguities with depth and compassion.
At its heart, What’s Mine and Yours is a coming-of-age story — one that, in its foreground, examines the unraveling of marriages, complexities of siblinghood and reckonings with parents. Beneath it all lie tragedy and myriad loves that are tender and rich and fraught ... At times, with its shifting points of view, this multigenerational saga can become somewhat unwieldy. There are few surprises. And yet, in this predictability — where the narration depicts the unavoidable messiness of adolescence — Coster portrays her characters’ worlds with startling vitality ... Its witty and cutting dialogue is reminiscent of an early Gloria Naylor, and the dynamics of sisterhood are not unlike the works of Julia Alvarez ... It is in this space between them where Coster, who writes with unflinching romance, wills us to examine all the ways we come to unlove our beloveds, our families and ourselves.
In vividly detailed scenes spanning more than 25 years, Coster (author of Halsey Street and one of the National Book Foundation’s '5 Under 35' for 2020) illuminates the impact of Noelle’s and Gee’s families and formative years ... Coster allows every major player their time in the spotlight. Her rich character development illustrates the many ways family and circumstances can influence who we become.
... a rich if diffuse story of loss, betrayal, and systemic racism, centered on two families spanning the 1990s to the present, set mainly in the Piedmont area of North Carolina ... While Coster’s exploration of race is powerful, the scattered plotting dampens the impact of the various stories. It’s undoubtedly ambitious, but it doesn’t hang together.
... an intergenerational saga of two North Carolina families inextricably connected by trauma and love ... Coster weaves together a gripping portrait of generational pain. But the details of her plot—carefully constructed, if not especially subtle—pale in comparison to her characters, who are startling in their quiet humanity. Coster is an exacting observer but also an endlessly generous one, approaching her cast with a sharp eye and deep warmth. The overlapping pieces fit together, of course, but it’s the individual moments that are exquisite, each chapter a tiny snapshot of a whole world. Tender but—miraculously—never sentimental.
