This book is a series of vignettes, punctuation optional, each of which focuses on a single person.  Most of these persons are black women of varying ages, education levels, economic situations, and sexual persuasions.  One character declares as non-binary, or gender-free.  Their stories are interconnected in a variety of ways—blood relatives, friends, co-workers.  Some stories stand out more than others.  Dominique, for example, follows her super-control-freak lover Nzinga to the U.S. to live in a commune for women.  After three years of Dominique having lived essentially as Nzinga’s caged pet, some of the other women in the commune stage an intervention to allow Dominique to escape. In another story, Carole, an excellent student until she is gang-raped at thirteen, finally enlists the help of a teacher, Shirley, who has her own chapter in the book, to help extricate her from a state of despair.  Shirley later reaches a state of despair herself, unrelated to the fact that her mother lusts after Shirley’s husband.  Ouch.  LaTisha, who hosted the party during which Carole was raped, is an unmarried mother of three, by three different fathers, by the time she is 21.  These stories all have merit, and, even though I made some notes, I still had some difficulty keeping track of the characters’ interrelationships.  A diagram would be helpful, and I could probably create one if I were inspired to read this book again, but I’m not.  The book has no cohesive plot, but some of the individual stories have a sort of plot, and some characters’ stories are finished in another character’s chapter.