Genesis is a 13-year-old girl struggling with self-acceptance. She has emotional trauma from her dad, Emory, whom she believes hates her because of his mean, drunken rants directed at her and the way she looks. Genesis is dark-skinned with thick, naturally textured hair like her dad, while Mama is light skinned with long, straight hair. Genesis is haunted by a memory of her dad drunkenly yelling at her for not being “pretty” like Mama. Because of her father's poor treatment of her, Genesis desperately seeks her dad’s approval, even when she knows that he is being cruel. His words have “shackled” her (113). Throughout the novel, she tries to find ways to lighten her skin, and then later lets Yvette put relaxer in her hair so that her dad will finally be proud of her and look at her the way he looks at Mama. Genesis also keeps a list of things she doesn’t like about herself and adds to it over the course of the novel, a symbol of her lack of self-hatred as the novel opens.

Genesis’s self-loathing impacts how she views other people, especially her classmates. Genesis judges her new classmates at Farmington Hills Middle first by their looks alone, especially their hair and their skin

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