Welcome Back, Booklovers! Is there a book you see often on social media that it feels like everyone is reading and enjoying? Sweetness in the Skin was one of those books for me. Inescapable between my mutuals and my explore page on Bookstagram.
In Jamaica, 13 year old Pumpkin lives with her granny and Aunt Sophie in a small home in downtown Kingston. Pumpkin and Aunty Sophie have dreams of moving to Paris on day and granny encourages them to move up their family's social standing. Pumpkin's mother Paulette dips in and out usually choosing not to stick around for long. However plans change when Granny dies. Sophie gets a job with the embassy in France while Pumpkin must stay behind until she's able to bring her over. Pumpkin's mother Paulette moves into the house bringing the father she never knew, Akil with her. Pumpkin peddles her baked goods at school and at local shops with the hopes to raise enough money to take the French exam and move in with her aunt.
This book almost felt like a checklist of commonly referenced topics in lauded Caribbean literature. The topic of colorism came up with Granny, Sophie, and Pumpkin being lighter than Paulette who was seen as the darker skinned less pretty one. However we never get a sit down between Paulette and Sophie to address this even though colorism divides the sisters. The author uses it as weak motivation for why Paulette is abusive and neglectful to Pumpkin. Abusive mothers often appear in acclaimed Black Literature not just in Caribbean stories but in other diaspora as well. However Paulette and Akil are downright evil towards their child and we never got good explanation why. There are plenty of neglectful parents out there who never wanted children. However many neglectful people simply stay away from their children and would be happy to have someone taking care of their child. These two both didn't want her but didn't want anyone else to want her and were jealous of her.
There were plenty mentions of the uptown vs downtown dynamic that is present in Kingston which needed to be explored more. Reading this book it felt like an uptown author writing a story about downtown living via hearsay. We get glimpses of the dynamic via the school Pumpkin attends with her wealthier peers but nothing feels quite fleshed out. And it doesn't help that Pumpkin's environment is a stereotype of what "ghetto" life is.
Even the conclusions Pumpkin comes to at the end seemed based off moments that happened off page because she suddenly had this open-minded outlook based upon how everyone else's lives had been going but not one solid conversation happened on page to warrant that conclusion. The ending felt too neat and tidy for the journey the story took readers on and this reader was left feeling unsatisfied. This type of story has been done before and better with more complexity.
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