The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard

 

This is a kinda weird book. Not in the sense of being Fantasy or SF or Horror, just in the sense that its apparent premise--the one that shows up in the cover copy--isn't really what the novel's about. Yeah, there's a family that all have superpowers, and yeah, they're Black, and yeah, there's a criminal chasing down an old guy because the old guy stole money from him; but really the superpowers seem mostly irrelevant, and the issues that could be about race seem more about money and privilege, and the criminal (and his organization) turn out to be easily defanged. What this novel is about is a family--part born and part made--that screwed up and screwed each other and kinda fragmented and blew apart and is starting to move toward ... not necessarily putting itself back together, but plausibly making something new out of itself. It's not a worthless novel, but it's kinda muddled and it feels much longer than its ~275 pages and it really feels kinda scanty and thin and disjointed, almost as scattered and fragmented as the family it's about.