Genesis Begins Again

Genesis Begins Again is a contemporary middle grade novel published in 2019 by Alicia Williams, a teacher and an author of children’s fiction and young adult books. Genesis Begins Again, Williams’s debut novel, was met with critical praise for exploring and adapting complex emotional themes such as colorism, addiction, and bullying for a younger audience. Genesis Begins Again was a finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature and the recipient of the John Steptoe Award for New Talent. The novel also received a Newbery Honor in 2020.

Genesis Begins Again is told in the first-person perspective of Genesis Anderson, the novel’s protagonist, which allows readers to intimately experience Genesis’s world through her eyes. Genesis’s language and tone reflects the informality of a 13-year-old girl, endearing and at times heartbreaking in its vulnerability.

Plot Summary

Genesis Anderson is a 13-year-old girl who lives in Detroit with her parents. She struggles to embrace her identity as a dark-skinned young woman as a result of bullying from her classmates and from her father. Genesis’s mother, whom she calls Mama, is light skinned with long, straight hair, whereas Genesis is dark-skinned with naturally textured curly hair, like her father. Genesis longs to look more like Mama so that her father will finally look at her with pride and affection, and she tries everything to lighten her skin because she believes that light skin is beautiful and dark skin is ugly and shameful. She even keeps a running list of things that she hates about herself.

The novel begins with Genesis finally getting the popular girls from her school to hang out with her, but when they arrive at her house, Genesis is horrified to see that her family has been evicted again. Her dad has forgotten to pay the rent, a frequent occurrence due to his drinking and gambling problems. The popular girls mock Genesis and call her names before leaving.

Genesis and Mama go stay at Genesis’s grandma’s house while Genesis’s dad looks for a new home. He finds them a nice, ranch-style home in a suburban neighborhood called Farmington Hills, which he assures Mama and Genesis that they’ll be able to afford because he is going to get a promotion at work. Genesis's dad comes home after they’ve unpacked, and it is clear he has been drinking and gambling. Mama says that he needs to go to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and get help.

Genesis starts at her new school, Farmington Oaks Middle, and a few of her classmates are mean to her, but Genesis finds that most of the kids at her new school are more accepting than her former classmates. She makes friends with a girl named Sophia, who soon becomes her first-ever best friend. Sophia confides in Genesis that she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and has a hard time making friends. Genesis confides in Sophia that she has never had friends because she’s “ugly” and she hates how “Black” she is and desperately wants to be light skinned with “good” hair. Genesis also grows close to her math tutor, Troy, a dark-skinned boy whose intelligence and ability to play the violin surprise her, since she typically associates those skills with white people, not dark-skinned kids like her. Troy becomes her friend, and he and Genesis and Sophia always eat lunch together in the library after tutoring. It’s the first time in her life Genesis starts to feel like she has friends.

Genesis also finds support in her new chorus teacher, Mrs. Hill. Mrs. Hill introduces her to the music of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Etta James and encourages Genesis to audition for the school’s talent show. Mrs. Hill tells Genesis that her singing voice is a gift.

One day in chorus while Genesis is singing, she lets herself get lost in the music and suddenly finds herself deep in one of her worst memories. The last time they were evicted, they stayed in her dad’s friend’s basement. Her father got drunk and yelled at Genesis for not coming out looking like her mother and being too “Black.” The memory haunts Genesis.

Soon after, Genesis learns that her grandma's father believed that it was important to “marry up,” which meant only marrying light-skinned people. He believed light skinned Black people were harder workers and overall superior to dark-skinned Black people. He held a brown paper bag up to Grandma’s sister’s boyfriend to prove that he was too “Black” to marry into their family. Genesis is horrified to learn that her grandma did the same thing to her dad. She suddenly realizes that her grandma has barely any pictures of her and her dad and wonders if she looks down on her for looking like her dad instead of Mama. Genesis works even harder after that to make her skin lighter, going so far as to use a scouring pad on her skin. Later, Genesis is excited when she reads about a bleaching cream that can lighten her skin in up to five days. She steals Mama’s credit card and orders it. She is thrilled when she starts getting light spots on her face and hands.

Meanwhile, Genesis’s dad’s drinking habits have gotten worse. Genesis comes home one day and finds a note on their door from their landlord saying that they have yet to receive the rent. Genesis’s dad doesn’t come home until days later, and Mama is furious to find out he is drunk. He says he was just celebrating because he got the promotion at work and paid the rent, but Mama leaves with Genesis to stay with Grandma for a few days.

At school, however, Genesis’s life is going pretty well. She auditions for the talent show, singing for the first time in front of people by herself. She does so well that Yvette and Belinda, two cool girls, invite her to be a part of their group for the talent show and do her hair for her. She accepts, and they put a relaxer in her hair, which she loves, but she later finds out they are only using her for her voice.

Genesis takes a bus to her dad’s work and finds out that he was fired from his job and hasn’t paid the rent again. Mama is livid and tells Genesis that they are moving. Soon after, Mama discovers that Genesis stole her credit card to buy the cream and that she let Yvette put a relaxer in her hair. She is just as furious with Genesis as she is with Genesis’s dad. She grounds Genesis and tells her she is not allowed to perform at the talent show.

Genesis decides to sneak out and perform at the talent show anyway. She leaves her list of things she hates about herself and a note for her dad explaining why she had to perform and that she hopes he will come. When she performs, the crowd is blown away. She doesn’t win, but Troy does, and she is thrilled for him. Mama finds her afterward, and she is holding Genesis’s list in her hands; she tells Genesis she is proud of her. Her dad came to the show, but he was drunk, and he left after she performed.

After the talent show, Genesis finds her dad crying in the living room. He tells her that she was amazing and that the reason he treats her the way he does is because he doesn’t want Genesis to be a failure like him--just like his mom always said he was. He drinks to drown out her voice, just like how Genesis tries to drown out the voices that tell her she isn’t beautiful. Genesis realizes he is hurting, and she forgives him.

Genesis decides to rip up her list and begin a new chapter in her life, one where she discovers not things that she hates about herself, but things she loves about herself.