Okay, so "Color Me In" by Natasha Díaz is this coming-of-age story that totally hits you in the feels. It's about Nevaeh, this 16-year-old girl who's dealing with some major identity stuff after her parents split up.
So, Nevaeh's got this mixed background - Black mom, Jewish dad - but she never really thought about it much until she moves to Harlem with her mom. Suddenly, she's stuck between two worlds and doesn't quite fit in anywhere. Like, her cousin thinks she's too privileged to get what it's like being Black in America, and her dad's pushing this belated bat mitzvah on her instead of a sweet sixteen. Talk about awkward!
The book does a pretty good job tackling some heavy topics like racism, religious differences, and finding yourself. It's cool how Díaz weaves in stuff about friendship and first love too. You can tell she's writing from personal experience, which makes it feel real.
What's frustrating is that Nevaeh stays quiet for a long time instead of standing up for herself. But I guess that's part of her journey, right? Watching her slowly find her voice and figure out where she belongs is pretty satisfying.
It's not a perfect book - sometimes it feels like it's trying to cover too much ground - but it's definitely an important read. If you're into YA novels that deal with identity and don't shy away from tough topics, give this one a shot. It'll make you think, and maybe even relate if you've ever felt caught between different worlds.
3.75 stars feels right because while it's got some powerful moments and important messages, it doesn't quite hit that 5-star wow factor. Still, it's a solid read that'll stick with you after you're done.

This book was outstanding! I love that it was so well written and handled the topics of race so well! I found this to be one that I wanted to pick up again right after I finished.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

At its core, the book delivers and provides us with a unique perspective on finding your identity.

I hate talking badly about books on marginalized groups, being a POC myself. However, this book was simply not for me. Overall, the message of the book is strong and important. I just think that putting a bit more focus on the plot and its characters would make it a lot better.

A great coming-of-age story about a biracial teen who is trying to find her identity while navigating being a teenager. I found Navaeh real, flawed, and honest in her search for belonging.

DNF at 60 pages
This book has too much and too little going on. I couldn't get into this book. A little dramatic for my taste (ugh, angsty teenagers).

Color Me In is a wonderful coming of age story. The book follows a biracial sixteen year old teen as she learns and tries to navigate her way through the world. For a YA, it is written well, and the characters are easy to connect with/understand.

I really enjoyed this read! It was about a biracial girl who really tried to find out how to navigate between both sides of her family who represented different races / cultures

I really wanted to like this more than I did but overall it fell flat. A story of a biracial teen splitting her time between her wealthy Jewish father’s house in the suburbs and her mother’s inner-city neighborhood. A lot of the characters felt like stereotypes and lacked the depth I think people have but I hope to read more stories from this perspective.

I think this story is perfect for fans of Angie Thomas and Elizabeth Acevedo. It is the perfect blend of The Poet X and The Hate U Give. Color Me In is a coming of age story about a biracial teen with divorced parents, trying to navigate her Black and Jewish heritage to figure out just who she is supposed to be. Naveah is not always a likable character. As she struggles to find her own voice, she sometimes silences those around her who also need their voices heard. I liked this book a lot, it made me realize that the best thing I can do is listen. Even though I couldn't relate to Naveah's struggles, the author made me feel like I was present and a witness to the hurt she felt. I will read more this author in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, for this free review copy.

Color Me In was published in 2019 and I am finally catching up on my oldest ARCs. I had my daughter that year, so it’s been a few busy years. 😅

Color Me In was Natasha Diaz’s debut novel, and it was a great one! It’s the story of a young girl discovering her heritage and who she truly is. If you read the authors note, which I usually skip over 🤦‍♀️, she says that she based this novel on her real life. I enjoyed this book from start to finish, and loved that we got to read the journal entries, from Nevaeh’s mom. It helped me understand her father more! Nevaeh’s family and friends really helped tie the story together also, and they were all enjoyable. If this one has been sitting on your shelf, or your kindle like mine, pick it up and enjoy it! I’m glad I finally did.

Between 3 and 4 stars - unique story, quite predictable, but valuable in its perspective on race and belonging,

A beautiful book about family and identity. Characters who are both Black and Jewish are still rare in YA fiction, so this book will be very meaningful to people who are looking for characters who are either. This will be popular with many YA readers.

4/5 stars. This was well-written Young Adult contemporary novel that was own voices and deals with identity. Thank you netgalley for the early copy.

Contemporary look at intersectionality. Authentic character, plausible world building and compelling to read.

Overall I enjoyed Color Me In. Nevaeh's experience being torn between two cultures was really a compelling story, and I loved the stark differences between the two. The story got a little over dramatic for me in the last third of the book - it felt lie Diaz was trying to make a really grand statement that was definitely there, but a bit over dramatic. That said, I do love coming-of-age stories and this one was really unique.

I enjoyed this read…but I struggled a bit with it. It took me a while to get into the story and start investing in it, and I found our main character, Nevaeh, to be way more judgmental for my taste. However, I did love the message the author wraps the plot around. Highly recommend grabbing the audio of this instead of diving into it the traditional reading route.

This was the first book I identified with as a biracial person. It shows the complexities of being not enough to those around you, because they see you through their lens. Nevaeh struggles with her identity & being able to love both "sides" of who she is while also not feeling like enough of either in a world that judges you based on appearance. In that struggle to own a check box identity, she finds her way & hits some hard realities amongst her friends & family members.

Nevaeh learns to be less self centered in her concerns & has to realize how sheltered her life of privilege has been. All while navigating a new life, in a new space with a new understanding of who her parents are as adults. While she gets close Natasha leaves an open door to see her progression in a possible sequel.

Natasha teaches a hard lesson many of us had to learn too. The check box identity isn't to be desired, but let go, because its outdated & oppressive in so many ways. The boxes that say if you're truly black you won't speak good English or if you're truly down with your culture you must participate in foolishness. The boxes that say well if you're biracial how come you don't have the "good hair" check box marked or the nice light Hollywood perapproved skin tone?

I would recommend this book for all adolescents to not only see the struggle of their identity isn't problematic or unique to them, but a lesson we must all learn. Especially when the world around us wants to pidgeon hole us into check boxes.

What I Liked
From the very first chapter (which I guess is more of a prologue!), I was struck emotionally by the theme of the book. Child Nevaeh and her mother are at a playground, and a white mother mistakes Nevaeh's Black mother as Nevaeh's nanny. This chapter also shows us the woman Nevaeh's mother really is--patient, proud, and strong--versus what we'll see for most of the rest of the book. Devastated by Nevaeh's father's infidelity, her mother is largely paralyzed by depression and grief.

The development of Nevaeh as a character is slow and thoughtful, like a flower blooming one petal at a time. Her dual identities are weighed equally and balance each other back and forth. The poetry throughout the book, both what Nevaeh writes herself as well as the poetry of her peers, is beautiful and lyrical and at times sad, but always powerful.

Nevaeh's father is Jewish but not terribly observant, a Jewish background that is similar to my own. Knowing vaguely that this is a piece of your heritage, but not knowing how to interact with it, is a strange feeling of disconnection and longing to be allowed into a space that you ultimately do have the right to occupy. Nevaeh's Torah study with a rabbi-in-training opens up her understanding of the Jewish side of her heritage, and is done in a very realistic way. Those of us Jews who were not involved in synagogue from a young age, who had to struggle to learn Hebrew as adults, who felt like we were stray balloons floating on the periphery of the party, will understand Nevaeh's feelings toward her late bat mitzvah.

Díaz artfully brought Nevaeh closer to her mother via her mother's old journals from when she was in college and had just met Nevaeh's father. This glimpse into her parents' past shows not only their budding love and a side to her parents that we don't really see in the present, but also the racism that Nevaeh's mother deals with, and her father's own casual (unintentional? but still harmful and unexamined) racism that he imposes upon her. Díaz's own experiences informed Nevaeh's interaction with racism within the Jewish community--anti-Blackness is an ugly part of some Jewish communities, and Díaz brings to light that anti-Blackness in a sensitive and enlightening way.

Content Warnings
Sexual assault: It happens very early in the book, and is not an assault of Nevaeh but of her mother, told in a journal entry. The assault itself is detailed enough to make the reader uncomfortable, but vague enough that it isn't gratuitous. It is not an arbitrary assault for shock value; it informs much of Nevaeh's mother's character as she goes to college and interacts with Nevaeh's father. The psychological effect it has on her self-worth is poignant and heart-breaking, and as the journal entries progress the reader is at the same time joyful that Nevaeh's mother is able to work through her feelings of guilt and worthlessness via her positive interactions with Nevaeh's father, but also furious that one day, her father is going to undo all of that trust and love by betraying her in the worst way possible. This is another of Díaz's skillful emotional push-and-pulls when it comes to Nevaeh's understanding of her parents, and helps us understand why her mother, who is demonstrated to be a powerful woman otherwise, is brought so low by her father's cheating. This old, deep psychological wound is reopened violently by his betrayal, and her near-catatonic response is not only a response to the betrayal itself, but a re-triggering of her previous certainty that she is worthless and unlovable. If you are disturbed by depictions of sexual assault, it occurs during Nevaeh's first reading of her mother's journal (this is framed very clearly), and should be skipped for mental health protection.

Racist violence: When Jesús meets Nevaeh at her school and Nevaeh gets into a fight with Abby, a school security officer steps in, resulting in physical and emotional violence against Nevaeh and Jesús. There are no firearms involved. Jesús and Nevaeh are not harmed in a way that requires medical attention. This occurs in Chapter 36 and is mentioned without details in Chapter 37. If you are sensitive to depictions of racism-instigated violence, this part of the story can be skipped for mental health protection.

Cyberbullying: Abby uses nude photos she took of Nevaeh to humiliate her at school. The bullying itself happens in Chapter 36 and the photos are described again in Chapter 38. If you are sensitive to depictions of sexually-focused cyberbullying, this part of the story can be skipped for mental health protection.

What I Would Have Liked to See
Some of the antagonists, especially Nevaeh's father's new girlfriend, are unsubtle in their deviousness and are bordering on sitcom villain levels of evil. Several of them turn out to be at least sympathetic villains: Nevaeh's snobby classmate who she's forced to do science projects with is a jerk because her father is a very true-to-life conservative bigot who is racist, transphobic, and isn't afraid of expressing those opinions loudly. The classmate's outright meanness begins to make sense as we're exposed to her home life and upbringing. I wanted to apply this same understanding of villainy to Nevaeh's father's girlfriend, but she appears to be an uncomfortably evil presence without pathos who is terrible to Nevaeh for no real reason (and cooks disgusting food lol). I definitely don't want her to be forgiven for being an unrepentant home wrecker, but I think she would have been a slimier villain with some subtlety folded in.

My Favorite!
My absolute favorite part of the book was Nevaeh's bat mitzvah. Throughout the book, Díaz skillfully set up the two seemingly opposing sides of Nevaeh's life in such a way that they seemed incompatible, like oil and water. When Nevaeh is going forward with her bat mitzvah even after her father's girlfriend bungles everything about it, I was wondering how on earth this was going to turn out to be something that would carry any sort of significance for Nevaeh. The coming together of all parts of her life into one stunningly unique ceremony brought me to actual tears. The bat mitzvah scene is absolutely beautiful.

TL;DR
When Nevaeh's parents separate, she unsteadily traverses their two separate worlds to come to embrace who she really is.

Although this is a YA book, I greatly enjoyed it as an adult. The teenage characters in this book were all interesting and complex, with varying backgrounds and struggles to understand their place in the world. I thought this was a great coming of age story.

This is a story of a biracial girl growing up in Brooklyn. While I enjoyed that the story included a diverse population, the plot development and writing was weak. I found it hard to finish.