I was so looking forward to reading this book which was on every Best Book List of the past year. Yet, I was a bit disappointed. It was an eye-opening experience into biracial families, the seduction of Hollywood and assumed success and economic distress.

The author is certainly talented as her writing was succinct and compelling. The story tended to become repetitious with each chapter harboring on a continual dread and feeling of tragedy. Yet maybe that is the sign of a compelling story except it was one I had read before.

Danzy Senna's Colored Television is a sharp, darkly comedic exploration of race, art, marriage, and identity in modern Los Angeles. The novel follows Jane, a biracial novelist, and her husband Lenny, a painter, as they navigate the precarities of parenting, financial instability, and the soul-draining allure of Hollywood’s promise of success. When Jane, desperate to salvage her career, turns to television writing, her ambitions collide with the realities of her crumbling marriage and the ethical quagmires of creative compromise. Filled with biting humor and incisive commentary, the story is both a satire of cultural commodification and a poignant portrait of personal struggle.

Senna's writing is electric, filled with wit and an unflinching gaze at the complexities of identity and privilege. Her ability to weave humor into moments of deep discomfort makes the novel both entertaining and thought-provoking. However, the narrative occasionally skirts deeper exploration of its darker themes, leaving some emotional threads tantalizingly unpulled. While Jane is a richly developed character, her singular perspective sometimes overshadows other characters, particularly Lenny, whose depth feels underexplored.

Ultimately, Colored Television is a masterful blend of satire and sincerity, a story that exposes the human desire for connection and success while questioning the cost of both. Senna's latest novel is as captivating as it is unsettling, a vivid reflection of the complexities of modern life and ambition.

A page turner in the sense that the main character kept making bad decisions and I couldn’t look away, but I was cringing the whole time. The story and chars revealed the complexity of a biracial identity. Reminded me a lot of Yellowface but I preferred that book.

I read this and enjoyed it greatly. It took me into the unfamiliar territory biracial families, glittery status-conscious neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and an engaging storyline about the creative process.

This was a good book and I understand the buzz, AND the lead character is one of the most frustrating and annoying characters i have ever read

This was another hyped book that I worried wouldn't fulfill my expectations but fortunately it did and I am officially and Danzy Senna stan. Colored Television was everything I'd wanted from The Other Black Girl and One of Our Kind and didn't get. This book is a RIDE, one I didn't want to get off. Senna builds the tension so well, leaving the reader turning pages so they can see just where she's taking us next. She captures L.A. and the world of Hollywood TV writing SO WELL, and speaks to mixed race unlike anyone else I've read (except maybe Brit Bennett). Love love loved.

I read Danzy Senna's Caucasia in high school many moons ago and the experience of studying that book has stuck with me ever since. I don't know why it's taken me so long to seek out another one of her novels, but when Colored Television became a buzzy book of the year it felt like the perfect time. That said, I'm sad this one didn't work for me now quite the same way Caucasia worked for me back then. Senna is a wonderful writer with a sharp eye for the intersection of race with, well, everything, but here most particularly with creativity and career and culture. But I found the voice sometimes hard to connect to, and some of the characters insufferable, and the humor not in line with my own. I know this will, and has, worked for so many readers, but I'll be on the lookout for a book by Senna that hits my personal taste a bit more in the future.

DNF. This is the first book I've read by Danzy Senna, and I think her writing is excellent. At this time, however, I'm feeling somewhat frustrated and bored by the story and am choosing not to continue.

An entertaining, fun and light-hearted read about a bi-racial writer trying to succeed in Hollywood.

I loved Danzy Senna's unique perspective in this novel. It is a simultaneously cutting and hilarious novel. Highly recommended.

After years of living precariously, Jane, her husband, Lenny, and their two kids have landed a stint as housesitters in a friend’s luxurious LA home. Jane is determined to finish her latest novel, get tenure, and have some stability and success in her life. But things don’t quite work out as she hoped. In search of plan B, Jane turns to Hollywood and starts working with a producer to create “diverse content” for a biracial comedy show. Things are finally going right for Jane, until they aren’t.

I really enjoyed reading and thinking about this novel. Senna is such a smart and sharp writer. This book is funny, biting, and fresh in the way it discusses race and identity. Senna infuses sizzling tension into the pages, even as Jane carries out the more mundane tasks of life. I constantly wanted to shake Jane for her bad decisions, but that’s part of the fun of this book. I didn’t love the ending as much as I was hoping to, but this was a sharp and deeply observant read that kept me turning the pages.

Just when I thought I knew where this book was going, it went a different direction. And I'm not sure if I like the direction it went in. But I am glad I read this book and thought it was executed well.

Jane is a writer living in L.A. with her artist husband and two children. While in some ways she detests the vapidness of the Hollywood entertainment industry, she’s drawn to the money and power it provides–especially after spending a year living in the stunning home of a television writer. After a set-back with her long awaited second novel, she becomes increasingly desperate to become a television creator and the results are explosive. Senna is incredibly skilled at writing flawed characters who make horrible decisions, while still giving readers understandable motives for those decisions. While the satire and tension are what drive this novel, what I appreciated most was the interwoven commentary about art, attention, and selling out.

COLORED TELEVISION was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and I’m happy to report that I loved it! The story follows Jane, a writer struggling to finish her next novel while house-sitting for a wealthy producer friend in LA. Jane desperately wants to give her children the stable life she never had growing up so when things with her novel don’t work out, she turns to TV writing. Infused with dark humor and profound insights, Senna’s latest tackles themes of mixed-race identity, artistic integrity, motherhood, marriage, class, politics, and the dark realities of Hollywood. This was a thrilling, sharp, and extremely thought-provoking read.

A mulatto professor snd author-Jane-marries to a black artist-Lenny with two children who live in poverty unyil they manage to live in Jane’s friend Bret’s wealthy home. Jane has spent ten years of her life writing the great mulatto model which is rejected by publishers but then appropriated by a television producer-seemingly her friend-who turns it into an Emmy award tv series, for which Jane gets no financial, professional recognition. Biting, at times funny, at times sad, nevertheless an insightful look at biracial marriages in America.

I thought this was just okay for the first half, and then the second half fizzled out in terms of keeping up the pace and momentum. Despite being bored with the second half, I did love all of the social commentary and thought that the discussion surrounding certain topics was important and pertinent. Overall, a great satire and cultural criticism.

Danzy Senna managed to write a cringe inducing all too real character without making me want to throw the book across the room. I couldn’t stop reading. I appreciate this novel from a booksellers perspective because it is clever, beautifully written, fast paced and timely—which means I can handsell it to a wide swath of customers! I need to read Senna’s backlist.

An enjoyable read blending the realities of working as a bi-racial writer with a bit of male dominated Hollywood nonsense.

Perhaps I’m not the target for this book? While there were many insightful points about being of mixed race in America, I just didn’t find any of the characters very likable so I didn’t love it.

Colored Television by Danzy Senna is a book about a lot of things. It's about how to be a "creative" (writer for the wife, artist for the husband) in a tenuous economy and zeitgeist that doesn't have a lot of appreciation for serious art. It's about the challenges of raising a family. It's about living in a very expensive part of the US (Los Angeles, in this case) with all the taste and none of the means. It's about the envy that comes with this territory (much like the recent Entitlement by Rumaan Alam). And overlaying all of this is the issue of doing all of this as someone whose biracial identity is central and critical. I liked this book a good deal more than I thought I would. I really enjoyed the humor and the absurdity of many of the situations Jane finds herself in (almost always through her own doing). Situations and cultural contexts (e.g., the television industry, the "hot" neighborhood, the world of publishing) were painted in an exaggerated way (almost to the point of caricature) but I was all in for it. In short, this was an enjoyable read with important themes that I'll be recommending to others.