-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
A Novel
by Christine Pride, Jo Piazza
Book Reviewed by:Told from alternating perspectives, an evocative and riveting novel about the lifelong bond between two women, one Black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event—a powerful and poignant exploration of race in America today and its devastating impact on ordinary lives.
Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia.
But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen's husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband's freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend.
Like Tayari Jones's An American Marriage and Jodi Picoult's Small Great Things, We Are Not Like Them explores complex questions of race and how they pervade and shape our most intimate spaces in a deeply divided world. But at its heart, it's a story of enduring friendship—a love that defies the odds even as it faces its most difficult challenges.
Pride, who is Black, and Piazza, who is white, present a relatively balanced view of how people of different races might approach a tragedy such as this one. I appreciated their nuanced portrayal of Jen, who comes across as a sweet, well-meaning person who is clueless about her friend's experiences of racism. While both points of view resonated deeply with me, it was Riley's that forced me, as a white woman, to reevaluate my thoughts and actions towards people of color...continued
Full Review
(725 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
A key scene in We Are Not Like Them occurs when one character impulsively stops at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and its associated Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.
Both the memorial and the museum were created as a result of efforts by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) to honor those Black Americans who were enslaved, terrorized by lynching, those who suffered racial segregation, and individuals who are "burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence." Formed in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson (a public interest lawyer and the author of Just Mercy), EJI's efforts are focused in three main areas: criminal justice reform, racial justice and public education. Work on the memorial began in 2010 as EJI ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked We Are Not Like Them, try these:
by Nicola Yoon
Published 2025
Thrilling with insightful social commentary, One of Our Kind explores the ways in which freedom is complicated by the presumptions we make about ourselves and each other.
by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Published 2022
Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.
Allison Winn Scotch, bestselling author of Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing
A timely, evocative read about what tests us as friends, as partners, and ultimately, as humans, and will have you rethinking your own perspectives and experiences. A perfect read for 2021.
.gif)