The premise was great. The writing was bland, though, and left me feeling that many potential punches were checked. "Polished" comes to mind as the way to describe this writing...not in a good way. The sentences sound good but tend to use seven words where one would do. There is a lot of saying exactly the same thing over again in the next sentence--both sentences artful enough but, damnit, pick one and edit out the other one. Also there was lot of unnecessary throat clearing in the narrative voice itself--"perhaps," "of course," etc. really dragged on the storytelling. This all may feel really nit-picky but for me it weighed the story down to the point of tedium.

Also, I never really felt the author owned his own premise. He, and through him the narrative voice, never felt comfortable to me in the role of explaining what it would be like to meet an old friend who had chosen to live life as a black man instead of his "Designated at Birth" race/ethnicity of white Jew. I found myself wishing this book had been written by Percival Everett, who has completely pwned this edgy territory of race identity in his novels. Anyone who was like me intrigued by the premise of this book, but disappointed in the delivery, should immediately look up Everett's 2001 novel, Erasure. ( )

When finishing this book, I thought of what one of my author friends says, “Every book is not for everybody, but every book is for someone.” Unfortunately, this was not the book for me. Maybe I was not the right target audience, maybe I have read too many books on the subject of race, identity, memory and starting over. I welcome all books that will help with an honest discussion on race, identity, and culture and for some this book will may them stop and think about their own feelings about race and culture and maybe prompt them in a direction that had not thought about before. I had too many okay why is the author/characters saying that moments. ( )

What if I was born of the wrong ethnicity? Could I be happier in a different culture? If I could change my ethnicity, would I? These are the kinds of questions at the center of Jess Row's novel Your Face in Mine. I could relate. Had racial reassignment surgery been a viable option twenty years ago, I would've begged my parents to allow me to do it (oh, I can imagine how well that would've gone). This is the point where I can get really personal and tell you my story, but I think I'll pass this time. Needless to say, I have long had my own doubts regarding cultural attachments and my place in the world.

Perhaps my personal experience is why I loved this book from the get-go. I could identify with Martin. As a character in a novel, I don't think Martin is developed well enough—I never quite got a sense of why he'd go through with the racial reassignment—nevertheless, I understood the unspoken and the understated: Martin's draw to blackness was an emotional need, the appeal of compassion and family he found lacking in his own culture. So Martin gets the surgery and creates a completely new identity and in the first pages of this novel, he calls out to Kelly, a friend from high school. It has been nearly twenty years. This is where the story blooms. Kelly has to negotiate his feelings about Martin being a completely different man. The narrative, as told by Kelly, gets lost in backstory, subplots, and philosophy, but these largely do not detract from the primary story. Sure, I didn't quite buy the relationship between the three high school friends (Martin and Kelly, plus Alan, a significant player in their past), nor did I find Martin's mental transition organic, but those things largely didn't matter. I was fascinated by Martin and the choice he'd made; I was intrigued by how different of a person he'd become simply by “changing his 'race'”. To add to my enjoyment of the story, Kelly's history was heartbreaking and a wonderful component to keep the primary story from growing stale. I loved this novel...

until I just stopped caring. Two-thirds of the way through Your Face in Mine, there's a drastic change. In comparison to the narrative flow and tone of the novel, Martin's racial reassignment seems mild. Suddenly we're in the middle of a suspenseful something-or-other. Characters do one-eighties on us, with the turn of a page they're someone else (which may seem apt given the book's subject, but in the context of the novel it felt like a ploy, manipulating the story into the mold of the author's desire). Character choices come out of nowhere and I never got a firm handle on the 'why'. More suspense and a random illogical appearance by a minor character from earlier in the novel left me wishing I'd put it down after Part One. Everything after and ever after did not gel for me.

It felt to me like Row was writing for me in Part One. No, the novel wasn't perfect and it was definitely not going to be an all-time favorite, but I could've handed it a five-star rating. Whomever Row was writing to in Part Two, it wasn't me. And I have a feeling that that person who loved Part Two probably didn't feel like Part One was written for them; that person will likely find all the philosophical discussions earlier in the book quite tedious. Your Face in Mine is an odd little book that has so much potential, but I'm not sure who the intended audience really is. It is a great idea for a story, but in the end this novel itself is suffering from questions of identity. ( )

This book was a difficult one to digest. The story follows a man, Kelly Thorndike, as he is reacquainted with an old friend who has undergone racial reassignment since their estrangement. At first, I expected this book to be a statement on race relations and the impact of racial identity on a societal construct, but as the book went on, it turned into something a lot more introspective than I had imagined it would be. I want to make sure to give the author due credit for creating these extremely complex characters and dealing with their self-reflections in a genuine manner, for it is not something that is easily done. However, I personally did not love this book. Due to the fact that the story does not primarily take place in its own plot, but also is largely comprised of the characters' own introspections, it became disjointed, and I found myself easily pulled out of the experience of the story. Overall, a somewhat disappointing novel, but I do believe the author deserves fair consideration. ( )