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Overview
Shanika Ann Jenkins is the pride of her African-American family; smart, beautiful, and born with blue eyes and blonde hair. Though her grandmother and father are happy because she represents years of passing down light skin and marrying well, Shanika's mother insists on her name reflecting her African-American heritage so that she will always be proud of who she is. When Shanika gets the opportunity to work for a PR firm in New York, she finds that everyone assumes she is white; she also notices that being white has it advantages, from getting respect at work to getting picked up by a cab when other African-Americans are passed by. When she starts dating a successful white colleague, she continues with the lie, despite the guilt she feels at disappointing her mother and her heritage. When she falls for a handsome African-American business man, she must finally face who she is and what she's done, even if it means losing everything and everyone she loves.Editorials
Publishers Weekly
In her fifth novel, Quinones Miller (Satin Doll) attempts to make a commentary on race but instead delivers a stew of clichés, two-dimensional characters and tired stereotypes. African-American Shanika Jenkins, who has "skin as white as Meryl Streep's," blond hair and blue eyes, comes from a long line of Jenkinses who pride themselves on being so light-skinned that some people could mistake them for white. After graduating from college, Shanika gets an interview at a New York PR firm and starts dreaming big. But after the interview, Shanika is told she was turned down for the position because the interviewer thought she was white, and therefore wouldn't help meet the company's affirmative action quota. She interviews for another position that isn't subject to the AA rules as a white woman and, predictably, lands the job and her career takes off. The lies snowball and she hurts plenty of people, including the man of her dreams: the handsome African-American businessman Tyrone Bennett. The ending may surprise, but there are few reasons to get that far. (Feb.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
In Miller's (Satin Doll) latest, blond, blue-eyed Shanika Ann Jenkins decides to pass as a white woman since none of her coworkers at the PR firm where she's employed suspect that she is African American. But she must finally face who she is when she meets and falls for a handsome black businessman.
—Ann Burns
Library Journal
The drama never heats up in this tepid seventh novel by Essence best-selling author Miller (Satin Nights ), whose fans might not appreciate her leaving the streets of Harlem for Madison Avenue. Blond, light-skinned, African American Shanika Jenkins-after being passed over for not looking black enough for a position at a prestigious PR firm-becomes Nicole Jensen to land a job not designated as affirmative action. As she slips into "passing" for white, Nikkie tells herself it's temporary. But despite her discomfort at letting racist remarks slide and estrangement from her Detroit family, she enjoys her favored spot in the firm and admission to the hot clubs. As time goes on, Nikkie squirms more often, but it gets harder to reveal her deception. With no sex scenes or real romance to engage readers, though, even the author's trademark sassy dialog can't lighten the story enough for it not to sink under its weighty moral-be true to yourself. Purchase for large African American fiction collections.-Laurie A. Cavanaugh, Brockton P.L., MA
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.