Get your first book for just $9.99.

Join today.

We’ll make this quick.

First, enter your email. Then choose your move.

By pressing "Pick a book now" or "Pick a book later", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Get your first book for just $9.99.

Join today.

You did it!

Your account is now up to date.

get the appget the app

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play

Already have the app? Explore here.

In Every Mirror She's Black by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström

Contemporary fiction

In Every Mirror She's Black

Debut

by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström

Excellent choice

Just enter your email to add this book to your box.

By pressing "Add to box", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Volume 0
Volume 0

A free gift for you.

Embroidered and thoroughly spellchecked. Add it to your first box.

No thanks, just checkout

Quick take

This absorbing debut turns a mirror on modern-day Sweden to reveal the ins and outs of life for three Black women.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Techie

    Tech world

  • Illustrated icon, Immigration

    Immigration

Synopsis

Successful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, CEO of the nation's largest marketing firm, to help fix a PR fiasco involving a racially tone-deaf campaign. A killer at work but a failure in love, Kemi's move is a last-ditch effort to reclaim her social life.

A chance meeting with Jonny in business class en route to the U.S. propels former model-turned-flight-attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege—a life she's not sure she wants—as the object of his unhealthy obsession.

And refugee Muna Saheed, who lost her entire family, finds a job cleaning the toilets at Jonny's office as she works to establish her residency in Sweden and, more importantly, seeks connection and a place she can call home.

Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She's Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced yet accessible contemporary novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society.

Content warning

This book contains scenes that depict suicide and abuse.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of In Every Mirror She's Black.

In Every Mirror She's Black

1

Kemi

America had decimated Kemi’s love life.

It had shredded her dignity and tossed its slivers into the air, cackling like a hyena. Relegated to picking up questionable prospects, Kemi was tired of wearing her invisible armor. A two-ton defense system that screamed to the world she didn’t need a man.

She couldn’t carry that weight anymore.

Lately, her dating life read like a dossier of shame. First, there was that one memorable dinner with Deepak. “I think I told you I’m a software developer, right?” Deepak began to overdose on his own voice twenty minutes in. Kemi simply glared at him. She figured his name-dropping his career the sixth time wasn’t worth a verbal response. The rest of the evening, Deepak intermittently punctuated his monologues with his love for “Black booty.”

Then there was the silent date with Earl, a white accountant from Ohio, who summoned visions of a serial killer. Earl kept staring into nothingness past her face. Each time he tried glancing her way, his hawk eyes floated down her cleavage then darted back to the intriguing void beyond her.

She wasn’t sure if he was shy or scheming.

And how could she forget the Jamaican real estate agent, Devan, whose gaze kept trailing every white woman who sauntered past their table while professing unflinching love for the sisters?

America had stretched Kemi’s limits and run her resolve through an involuntary boot camp. According to every dating survey she had ever read, she—a Black African woman—was the least desirable relationship prospect, alongside Asian men.

Those surveys said first choice was someone else.

Create a free account!

Sign up to see book details, our quick takes, and more.

By pressing "Sign up", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Why I love it

My favorite novels always begin with the characters. Are they memorable and believable, can I hope and laugh with them, do they teach me something new? Of course, I'd like an interesting plot, realistic dialogue, beautiful sentences, but I'll forgive the lack of any of these for strong characters. What an absolute gift then, that in In Every Mirror She’s Black we don't lack for anything at all.

There are three protagonists in the novel: Brittany, a former model turned flight attendant; Muna, a refugee originally from Somalia; and Kemi, a Nigerian American marketing executive. All three are Black women, who have or will be making their way to Sweden from someplace else. And all three are connected via a fourth character, Jonny von Lundin, a wealthy business owner.

This is a book with scope. You follow these women over multiple years; you see them struggle with their careers, their love lives. You watch them adjust to Swedish society, and encounter both classism and racism, which take the form of incidents that run the gamut from creepily subtle to hideously direct. And it is clear from the start that these are three distinct women—their individual journeys deftly illustrating the simple truth that Black women and their experiences are not a monolith. Brittany, Kemi, and Muna have very different values. They make different decisions and different mistakes.

I left this book having been moved, educated, and entertained. It is thrilling, disturbing, mysterious, sexy, and above all, complex. Brittany, Kemi, and Muna will live in my head for a long time, and I don't think you could ask for anything more from a novel.

Member ratings (1,413)

Celebrate Black History Month
The Vanishing Half
How to Say Babylon
Transcendent Kingdom
The First Ladies
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
River Sing Me Home
Isaac’s Song
Razorblade Tears
Sankofa
Maame
Black Cake
Take My Hand
Behold the Dreamers
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
The Mothers
What's Mine and Yours
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Other Black Girl
Somebody's Daughter
The Girl with the Louding Voice
In Every Mirror She's Black
Before I Let Go
The Prophets
All We Were Promised
Don't Cry for Me
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
Let Us Descend
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
An American Marriage
Black Buck
Honey Girl
Salvage the Bones
Good Dirt
A Season of Light
Celebrate Black History Month
View all
The Vanishing Half
How to Say Babylon
Transcendent Kingdom
The First Ladies
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
River Sing Me Home
Isaac’s Song
Razorblade Tears
Sankofa
Maame
Black Cake
Take My Hand
Behold the Dreamers
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes
The Mothers
What's Mine and Yours
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Other Black Girl
Somebody's Daughter
The Girl with the Louding Voice
In Every Mirror She's Black
Before I Let Go
The Prophets
All We Were Promised
Don't Cry for Me
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
Let Us Descend
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
An American Marriage
Black Buck
Honey Girl
Salvage the Bones
Good Dirt
A Season of Light