The Perishing

 The Perishing by Natasha Deón, 304 pages.

Lou is a young Black woman who wakes up with no memories and no clothes in an alley in Los Angeles in the 1930s. She winds up in a good foster home that teaches her to value her education and works to make friends in her community and become a journalist, despite her unknown origins and a few strange abnormalities (like having to conceal the fact that she heals very, very quickly). We, the readers, know Lou is some sort of immortal because there are chapters narrated from a future life of hers, but Lou herself has no idea.

I think I may have liked this book better if it's synopsis wasn't so misleading. Most of the cool science fiction stuff that drew me to it only happens in the last 5%-10% of the novel, so it's mostly just historical fiction with occasion intercessions from the future that mostly felt like they gave the author an excuse to soapbox about various issues from a character with more perspective for a few chapters at a time. As a historical fiction novel it's alright, although even I (with know particular specialization in the 1930s) caught a few minor inaccuracies. Overall I'm just not entirely sure what this book wanted to be, and I'm not sure I would recommend it to someone else.