Roy and Celestial’s marriage is turned upside down as Roy is suddenly thrown into a jail for a crime he did not commit, a huge miscarriage of justice. African Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans, and Tayari Jones probes these facts and their cultural effect. Packed with emotion, and although the characters are not ‘likeable’ the novel poses a lot of big questions throughout. Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey both listed this as their favourite novel.