Sophronia \u201cNoni\u201d Reid is devastated when her mother makes her give up a dream internship in costume design to move to Magnolia, Virginia. Her mom, an esteemed researcher in the field of Black literature, is the new president at an elite liberal arts college in her small hometown, and frustrated Noni, who feels like she\u2019s living in her mom\u2019s shadow, struggles to adjust. Their new home, Tangleroot, was built by Noni\u2019s great-great-great-grandfather, who was enslaved there. While she\u2019s exploring the former plantation\u2019s cemetery, Noni discovers a grave belonging to a Sophronia Dearborn, who died in 1859 at the age of 18 and was buried with her baby boy, who died the same day. Hoping to learn more, Noni accepts a commission from one of the area\u2019s most influential\u2014and racist\u2014white families to sew a dress based on one her seamstress great-great-grandmother designed for one of their forebears. Along the way, the history of the dress and the search to learn more about the other Sophronia lead to the unearthing of long-buried secrets. Each well-chosen detail Williams includes of Noni\u2019s daily life, quest for autonomy, and search for answers is essential to this coming-of-age story. Racism, past and present, adds palpable tension as Noni brings her family\u2019s true history to light and reckons with her own sense of identity.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sophronia \u201cNoni\u201d Reid is devastated when her mother makes her give up a dream internship in costume design to move to Magnolia, Virginia. Her mom, an esteemed researcher in the field of Black literature, is the new president at an elite liberal arts college in her small hometown, and frustrated Noni, who feels like she\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}