Book Review By: Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the author of the novels “Wench” and “Balm”. She is a visiting assistant professor in the Literature Department at American University.

Their mother was Eritrean and their father African American, but the two sisters, Lana and Asha, had vastly different experiences growing up in Brooklyn in the 1980s because of their different skin tones. When Asha was born, she was “the color of milk,” Lana said. “When I was born, I looked like a chocolate drop.” As a teenager, Lana wished she had lighter skin, while her fairer sister had no idea of her longing.   [Read more]