103 pages • 3 hours read
Alicia D. WilliamsGenesis Begins Again
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Character Analysis
Genesis Anderson
Genesis is a 13-year-old girl struggling with self-acceptance. She has emotional trauma from her dad, Emory, whom she believes hates her because of his mean, drunken rants directed at her and the way she looks. Genesis is dark-skinned with thick, naturally textured hair like her dad, while Mama is light skinned with long, straight hair. Genesis is haunted by a memory of her dad drunkenly yelling at her for not being “pretty” like Mama. Because of her father's poor treatment of her, Genesis desperately seeks her dad’s approval, even when she knows that he is being cruel. His words have “shackled” her (113). Throughout the novel, she tries to find ways to lighten her skin, and then later lets Yvette put relaxer in her hair so that her dad will finally be proud of her and look at her the way he looks at Mama. Genesis also keeps a list of things she doesn’t like about herself and adds to it over the course of the novel, a symbol of her lack of self-hatred as the novel opens.
Genesis’s self-loathing impacts how she views other people, especially her classmates. Genesis judges her new classmates at Farmington Hills Middle first by their looks alone, especially their hair and their skin 
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