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.

So much fun! Somehow, with all the bad choices, we still love our striving protagonist, who tastes the allure of success not by her own means, but surreptitiously , amd then can’t get enough. We are rooting for her through the pages. A great read.

This book kept me guessing until the very end. It wasn’t a thriller per se, but I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop! And when it did, it wasn’t the shoe I expected. Senna perfectly captured the struggles of having time to be creative while still being a present parent. Highly recommend!

Jane is struggling to complete her opus novel while yearning for an opulent life in Los Angeles. Fed up when the novel is rejected by her publisher, she entertains the idea of “selling out” and writing a biracial comedy television. Having caught the attention of a famous producer, she starts brainstorming with him while lying to her husband about how she’s spending her time. Then it all goes wrong.

I really enjoyed this. It was an interesting look at living in LA, and I like how Senna tacked identity and race. An amazing debut!

While I fully expected a novel full of challenging and timely topics, including racial identity, marriage and family tribulations, cultural awareness, and narrative responsibility, I was (blown away!!) by the high quality of prose. That alone makes the novel stand out. I would also impress upon readers that the novel is as much about relationships and family dynamics as it is about the publishing, writing, and television industries. It was a remarkable novel. I will be hosting a Book Club discussion at the Half Hollow Hills Community Library, where I am a Reference Librarian. Thank you for the advance copy. It was real treat. I have already been recommending the book to patrons and colleagues.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of Colored Television by Danzy Senna.

It's difficult for me to gather my thoughts for this review because I recognize that this is a work by a gifted writer and yet it's not what I was anticipating nor something I typically enjoy. I thought I was in for a more dry, scathing take on the Hollywood machine but there is something deeper and sadder here. Perhaps I would have DNR'd if I didn't feel obligated to complete Colored Television and leave a proper review.

While Jane and Lenny are certainly relatable in many ways, I was horrified by some of their behavior while housesitting - drinking a friend's entire wine collection or wearing clothes that belong to the home's owners. Should this bother me? I don't know! It's a fictional world, but it gave me incredible anxiety. To me there's a difference between introducing a ticking clock scenario or highlighting character flaws and making my stomach hurt while reading a story.

I congratulate the author on this new book - her writing style is great and the editing is excellent. I just don't think it was for me.

This one just got on my nerves. Decent literary fiction but the main character, Jane, made decisions that weren’t endearingly naive- just plain naive. And the negativity between her and her husband towards the rest of the world… I LOVE a flawed character but I just couldn’t find a whole lot redemptive about Jane.

In COLORED TELEVISION, Danzy Senna presents readers with a heroine whom they will love to read about. An unreliable narrator is a beautiful thing, and difficult to pull off. Senna executes Jane's hope and dishonesty in a way that makes it difficult not to root for her. More importantly, Senna crafts a narrative that evokes laughter, gritted teeth, gasps, and despair, sometimes all on the same page. Dramatic irony drips off the page, and readers will be thinking about the narrative long after they finish reading.

Jane, a biracial college professor, goes on sabbatical to write her second novel, a requirement of getting tenure. She, her artist husband, and two kids, not able to afford to buy a house in Los Angeles, have lived in a variety of places and are now living in the beautiful house of a rich friend who is in Australia for a year. Jane's novel explores what it means to be mulatto (she explains her reason for using the term) in the United States but it ends up being messy, just like the topic it explores. To seek out financial success, she explores the world of TV writing. This book is satirical and at times meta. I often felt confused as to the time period of the book - it's set in the present day, but some of the references, observations, and timelines made it feel like it was set in the 90s or early 2000s. An interesting book worth discussing

Thank you to NetGalley, author Danzy Senna, and Penguin Group Riverhead for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

What a read! I've already seen a lot of buzz leading up to this novel, and I think it will garner even more upon publication. It did take me a little bit to get fully immersed in the novel, as Senna has a very unique writing style. However, once I adjusted to the pacing and style, I couldn't put this down. There is a lot of great commentary on many things: what it means to be mixed race (specifically mulatto, which is the language that Senna uses throughout to describe Jane and her projects), the American Dream, being a woman, being a woman of color, being a mom, the industry of being a writer, and so much more. I felt like I learned a little bit about a lot of topics all the way throughout, and I did enjoy it being from Jane's perspective. The book can be a bit frustrating at times, as Jane is not always likeable, but even when I was frustrated with her, I still understood her motivations and wanted to root for her. I think the pacing of the book specifically in the second half is phenomenal, and the book takes some turns that I couldn't always predict the character's motivations for at all points. It also balances a fine line to where it's darkly comedic but not overtly so that really works to give Jane as a character and Senna as an author a very clear voice. This is a unique story that I don't think will quite land with everyone, but it very much worked for me, and I already can't wait to see discourse about it.