Jennifer Baszile
Simon & Schuster
$19.99

Author Jennifer Baszile grew up developing her sense of identity in the same post-segregation era that produced luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey and President Barack Obama. In her achingly honest memoir, The Black Girl Next Door, Baszile sheds light on the complexities of an American society clumsily attempting to make sense of shifting racial relations and identities. Her experiences serve as the backdrop for a wider discourse on being black in America.

After her parents move to an all-white California suburb, Baszile and her sisters find themselves the only black students at their school. Fending to forge a sense of identity that balances the middle-class lifestyle of shy smiles and pleasantries and the inescapable blackness, which singles the Baszile girls out at school dances, debutante balls, and in parking lots, the sisters find more than their share of success.

However, as the girls grow up and witness the increasing role that their race plays in shaping their experience — and the toll that limited opportunity, unspoken frustration and the burden of being the perfect black family takes on both their parents — a new sense of self and individuality slowly begins to take shape.