It seems impossible that The Blueprint is Rae Giana Rashad's debut novel, given its perfect pacing and complex characters. The Blueprint introduces an uncanny society built on the heels of Civil War II, "when the United States government turned its guns on Black people and their allies," and the military installed a dictatorship called the Order. In this reshaped United States, only Louisiana remains "nonrestricted." Everywhere else is bound by the new Constitution, which authorizes the Order to oversee a system through which each DoS (Descendant of Slavery) is managed upon her maturity: first, assigned to a white man for a period of service, then forced to marry the Black man chosen for her. Those deemed most attractive are assigned to officers, with all the associated rank and status.
Solenne is a physically stunning DoS who recognizes her advantages even as she questions the system: "If you had to have a cage, it was better to have a beautiful one. Wasn't it?" Solenne is claimed by the most powerful man in the Order, who overrides the system because he loves her so fiercely. As Solenne wrestles with her feelings for her captor, she documents the story of her enslaved ancestor Henriette, writing and unwriting a narrative that both threatens and secures her sense of safety and identity in a thoroughly unjust world: "There was no patience for my softness, my wounds, my unraveling. There was no protection for me, a Black girl, no tender touch, no consideration for a delicate exterior. No space to scream." Solenne's haunting journey will force readers to consider what it means to be free. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian