At first, I felt like I was reading a younger version of “Beloved”, because the author seemed more concerned with conveying the feeling of an instant, with strong imagery, than with telling a story. But I kept reading anyway, and lucky for me, a story began to emerge. Evie’s/Toswiah’s father was a cop, and ratted on his colleagues for killing an unarmed black kid. Due to threats and gun shots, the family went into the witness protection program, and that takes some adjustment.

In addition to moving far from home and the girls starting in a new school, the family must deal with the situation that put them there, and learning their new identities. It’s one thing for a family to decide to move, it’s another to suddenly be snuck out of the house in the middle of the night. Each person has a different way of coping: The mom finds religion, dad stares out the window all day, older sister Anna/Cameron buries herself in homework with the goal of going to college early, and Evie/Toswiah joins the track team. She’s literally running from the past. Huh.

It’s a sad book, and if there were such a thing, it would have a stamp labeling it as a choice for “Oprah’s Girls’ Book Club”.