Review:

At the beginning of Color Me In, Neveah Levitz is just beginning to understand what life is like with separated parents. She and her mom recently moved to her mom’s family home in Harlem, which seems leagues away from the affluent neighborhood she grew up in. Between taking the subway to her private school back near her old house and learning how to navigate the intricacies of her new neighborhood, Neveah has to figure out how to adjust to her new reality.

Neveah’s mom is African American and Baptist (Christian), and her dad is ethnically and somewhat-religiously Jewish. She has never worked out where exactly that puts her, or how to fit in with either side of her heritage. Her school is mostly white, and she knows she doesn’t fully belong there. However, upon moving in with her darker-skinned relatives, she begins to see the challenges most African American people are confronted with daily – the ones she has avoided as she usually passes as white. To further complicate things, her dad decides she should embrace her Jewish side by having a belated bat mitzvah rather than a sweet sixteen birthday party. This story chronicles Neveah’s struggles to figure out who she really is.

Color Me In is a wonderful story of identity and coming of age and trying to decide who you want to be. Diaz wrote this book semi-autobiographically – she is a multiracial woman who grew up navigating the complexities that come along with having a multicultural identity. As such, the realness and genuineness of this story shine through every word. This would be a great read for high schoolers as they are navigating their own identities, but I also loved it as a twenty-six year old woman. I received an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Color Me In from the publisher, Delacorte Press. This book will be published in August 2019 – make sure to keep your eyes out for it!

**Trigger warning for sexual assault.**

Favorite Passage:

The rage I’ve felt for so long bubbles over, and the avalanche of emotion is almost impossible to withstand. I want her to know that her words don’t disappear when they leave her lips; they create tiny invisible lacerations, reminders that the sum of my parts will never be sufficient. I want to stop being expected to give people the benefit of the doubt as I take a seat at the table I would never have been invited to if I were three shades closer to my mom. I want to stop feeling like an imposter in my own skin, undeserving of my rich blended heritage.
–Chapter 36

What I Loved Most:

I have never read a book written from a perspective of someone who seems to have white privilege while being a person of color. Colorism in our American society allows people who look “more white” to escape much of the discrimination that their darker-skinned peers do. Neveah’s cousin Jordan, who is dark skinned, challenges Neveah to identify the way that her lighter skin affords her privileges that Jordan will never get. In this book, we see Neveah learn that by remaining silent when she sees racism, she is complicit in the continuing oppression of people of color.

Read this book if you like:

Coming of age stories, poetry, searching for identity, multicultural families, calling out white privilege

Book Details:

• Author: Natasha Diaz
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Date of Publication: August 20, 2019
• Age Recommendation: High School
• Pre-order Color Me In from Amazon if you’d like to own a copy!