Loved this middle grade book that honestly should be required reading to middle graders as it explores embracing ones true, often uncomfortable feelings. This is about Mackenzie who emits colors to depict her emotions and thinks that showing her true emotions will get her family kicked out of the town, until documentary film-maker arrives with her children and Mackenzie realizes there is more to the world. I loved this as an adult too because not just the kids do this, and it was good reminder for me as well!

With the set-up here, the average reader will not be surprised at the direction that this plot takes. The messaging about emotional complexity is clear, making it easy for a young reader to grasp. The writing itself isn't especially nuanced. Characters are thin. It's a unique concept but doesn't really extend much beyond that. It doesn't take chances or stretch the reader much.

Thank you to NetGalley, Astra Publishing House, Astra Young Readers, and Abby Cooper for the opportunity to read True Colors in exchange for an honest review.

In the world of True Colors, there are some people born with a rare emotional gift. Referred to as a “haze,” it is an aura of color surrounding a person’s body that changes colors based on the person’s current emotions. This gift is rare indeed.

For Mackenzie, her haze is a part of her, but it feels like a curse sometimes. After being bullied in kindergarten, Mackenzie’s parents move her family to Serenity, Minnesota, a special town with a small population (~1,000 give or take) that requires a waitlist to move in. The town is all about kindness, smiles, and happiness, so Mackenzie certainly won’t be bullied for her haze there, right?

People still notice her differences and tune into her changing colors, but no amount of adding “kindly” or “respectfully” after saying something will make it so. The town is a controlled society where internet and phone use is limited or absent entirely so that people may focus on being a part of their community.

When a woman comes to make a documentary about the kindest town in the United States so that those living in the regular world (like the rest of us) can see just how unique a living situation Serenity offers, some turmoil enters the town. The filmer’s daughter says and acts differently than the townspeople are used to, and her actions are viewed as “not the Serenity way,” but that’s what the documentary is for! To share the Serenity way! It takes more than one person of a different mindset to change the tide of thinking, though.

When Mackenzie’s emotions get too heightened, her haze explodes, a phenomenon that occurs rarely with those who have a haze and become emotionally overstimulated. When this happens, the people within the haze’s blast acquire their own haze! Seeking a cure, the kindest town must learn how to appreciate a new aspect of themselves, despite the attempts to find a cure. Mackenzie does her best to be a good Serenity member and help those new to having a haze understand what their colors mean, but she may also lose her friends in the process.

The concept of “true colors” presents a fascinating exploration of emotional diversity and societal norms through Mackenzie’s experiences in Serenity. The idea of a rare emotional gift manifesting as a colorful aura, or “haze,” is not only intriguing, but also serves as a powerful metaphor for how society perceives and integrates differences.

Mackenzie’s haze, initially seen as a burden due to past bullying, becomes both a source of identity and a catalyst for change after living in and experiencing Serenity. This town, designed around kindness and community, appears to offer refuge from judgment. However, as Mackenzie discovers, even in a place like Serenity, differences are noticed and sometimes misunderstood.

This novel is truly a testament to acknowledging one’s differences, as well as embracing one’s emotions. Taking care of one’s mental health, and the tips and tricks for how to do so, are integral for young people. Mackenzie’s story and experiences highlight some of the ramifications to keeping emotions bottled up inside.

Not only is this novel perfect for a middle grade audience with its thematic ideas of friendship, mental health, and identity, but older readers can find appreciation as well, and might even take away some information of their own to offer advice to those they care about who may be struggling emotionally. A must read!

In Serenity, Minnesota, everyone agrees to think positively and always look at the bright side of things. For twelve-year-old Mackenzie, who has the rare gift of her emotions showing as a colorful haze around her, this town is the promise of never having to deal with bullies. But when a documentary team comes to town and starts asking questions, Mackenzie gets overwhelmed and explodes - giving everyone in town their own haze. As Mackenzie learns that she’s really not the only person who struggles with being happy all the time, the whole town must figure out how to go forward when their true colors are on display for all.

This book has aspects of magical realism in it. Through reading, this novel teaches middle schoolers how to acknowledge their feelings and emotions and how to process through them. It also teaches that even though someone may look happy on the outside, they may be dealing with all sorts of emotions on the inside.

This story was mostly told through Mackenzie’s point of view, but also included messages and chat board discussions between the Serenity adults. There were also members of the community as if it was their interview section in the documentary.

I loved how Mackenzie named her colors, usually candy or bakery themed. And when she was learning about all the types of emotions that didn’t really have names in English, but did in other languages.

Overall, I would highly recommend this to preteens. It also has good discussion points I feel like for a classroom read as well. I think adults would get a kick out of it simply for the naming of colors to emotions, cause yea - sometimes you may feel worried watermelon or anxious apricot.

MacKenzie wears her heart on her sleeve. She can't help it! Her emotions show through a colorful haze that surrounds her. MacKenzie also lives in the town of Serenity, where everyone is required to happy and positive at all times. So keeping her emotions in check is upmost priority. Until one day that she just can't control her emotions any longer and she explodes. Literally

This is a great book with vibes similar to Inside Out or Turning Red. It shows readers the importance of emotions and talking about the emotions as well! Great read!

Thank you NetGalley, Astra Young Readers, and Abby Cooper for the early access copy and delightful experience of True Colors.

True Colors tells the story of Mackenzie, who was born with the gift of showing her emotions through a colorful haze. Mackenzie and her family moved to a small town named Serenity, where everyone looks on the bright side to foster a positive living environment. Mackenzie has had to learn how to manage her emotions so she looks happy, even when she may be feeling other emotions. When a documentary maker comes to town to film Serenity, overwhelmed Mackenzie explodes spreading the haze to the rest of the town. Mackenzie is now recognizing that she may not be the only one who is feeling other emotions than happiness and the town must learn how to handle their emotions on display.

True Colors does an exemplary job of showing through the characters how emotions and life experiences can impact actions, thought processes, and a person. In a town where negative emotions are not meant to be shown, Abby Cooper does a fantastic job in showing how important it is to be honest with yourself on your experiences. I highly suggest this title for any library or educator of middle schoolers who are looking to a tool to help bridge conversations about emotions and personal experiences.

True Colors (Hardcover)
by Abby Cooper
The concept of showing your emotions on your sleave is fundamentally brought forward in this book. The book is geared for late childhood, and middle school students. A social emotional learning book for the classroom. How would you react if you had a haze of colors that change with your emotions. Although Its easily known that people feel more than one emotion at the time, the descriptive words used for the colors does draw away from the story. It would be a good discussion with a class, on how they feel and showing that they can have more than one emotion at a time. This has come up in the social emotional learning lessons I have given this year. I Think this book would be a great 4 th or above book to read as a class, to understand that emotions are not always relayed easily and that emotions are complicated. The town without technology is its own discussion.
A list of resources for children and adults at the end of the book is remarkable. Some of them are great books for talking about emotions.

Imagine if, as you enter puberty, all of your emotions and confusion was visible to all. That's what is happening to our lead character here. She has all of the confusion and none of the answers as she lives in a place where you must be happy at all times. Eventually it builds up and explodes now everyone has colours so will she finally get answers?

The plot is well worked and the community believeable. I'd like to see more of the outside world and expand on the why and where colours came from but this works well for the 10 to 14 age range and I will be recommending it for a pride group read as well as novel to have in the library. I think it would help children understand that you can have many feelings about a situation and if you sort through them you can often reach acceptance. It also highlights that everyone has their own internal issues even when they show the world a happy face. In a trerribly British view point of 'How are yu?' 'I'm fine' way that the community builds on due to the founders desire to have nothing bad happen.

Fantastically awesome and wonderful! True Colors by Abby Cooper is a story about a girl who can't hide her feelings - no matter how hard she tries - like her feelings are displayed in a colorful haze around her body - and what happens when you do hold your feelings in and how it affects other people. I'd hand this to readers of Starfish (Lisa Fipps), Fighting Words (Kimberly Brubaker Bradley), Out of My Mind (Sharon Draper), Counting By 7s (Holly Goldberg Sloan) ...

This middle grade novel is about a town called Serenity where everyone is happy all the time- or at least it seems that way to Mackenzie, who has a magical condition that means everyone can see her emotions all of the time.

This premise was really interesting, and overall I enjoyed the story, though it was a bit too one the nose about feeling your feelings. Overall all though this story has an important lesson.

True Colors is such an awesome Middle-Grade book. It is a very unique story that tells about the supposed perfect town of Serenity and twelve-year-old Mackenzie Werner who lives there and has the gift of her emotions showing up as a colorful haze around her body. Really interesting. The characters were very well written and you could see the growth in Mackenzie as she navigates what is happening. Between the chapters are either town announcements or interviews with residents which I found very cool. Just a fantastic all-around story. Highly recommend.

True Colors is such a compelling story. It causes the reader to think about emotions in a way that they may never have even considered before. It felt profound and captivating at the same time. I was glued to the page and couldn’t wait for each new chapter. As Mackenzie tries to fit in in a town where everyone is expected to be happy, but she very obviously isn’t always happy (the colors that surround her represent each emotion that she feels), she begins to discover new things about her emotions. Then she begins to discover that many people experience emotions that she has never experienced before herself. There is so much I can relate to in True Colors for not only Mackenzie, but also for the town as a whole, and many other characters in the story. Many times as I would read I would find myself thinking, “yes, I understand why this person says this, there is merit here, but what else is there that I might consider?” True Colors takes the reader on an intriguing journey as you learn about the unique life that everyone has in the town of Serenity that is so different from the rest of the world. I was able to agree and disagree in many parts with what was going on and feel that my thoughts were valid because the way that Cooper writes, you feel allowed to disagree or allowed to agree and still feel a part of the story and that it doesn’t matter what you feel, there is a place for you to read and experience not only the story here, but life. True Colors makes me feel that everything I live in life is okay, I can learn, and I can grow and I can make mistakes and I’ll keep living and its okay if all of these things are differing growth/mistakes from other people in and out of my life on this great Earth we live on.

I love the premise here, but this one just fell a little flat for me. I didn't quite buy the concept of this utopian community that everyone buys into all the time of their own volition--I kept waiting to read about the drug keeping all the adults complacent or something. Everyone's approach to the "colors" seemed a little superficial to me, although I did appreciate how the colors themselves are straightforwardly described as a neurotransmitter imbalance. And I think the emotional intelligence/mindfulness genre is starting to feel a little crowded.

Mackenzie Werner's emotions manifest around her in a colorful haze. To keep her safe, her parents moved to Serenity, a small closed community built around being positive and choosing happiness all the time. Mackenzie tries to keep her haze happy - shades of yellow - but when a new family moves into town to film a documentary about Serenity, the questions asked begin to dig deeper than Mackenzie was ready for. These hard questions about emotions, about how to stay happy all the time and should you are too much for her and her haze explodes, infecting everyone in her parents bakery with her at the time. Now, other kids in the town, like her best friends and kids that walk the line of being mean and cruel and the adults have to deal with their emotions being on display and the questions that brings up. Though an interesting read, the interludes of emotions and inanimate objects pull a reader out of the main story. The new girl, Rayna, seems to be the only person in town that understands what emotions are as even her mother shooting the documentary tends to just push, as seen in interviews held with many of the side characters. Though there is some character growth about learning to deal with emotions and face them head on instead of suppressing them, there was more room in the story for this to happen more organically.

True Colors by Abby Cooper is a Middle-Grades book about emotions, and what can happen in a society where there is too much toxic positivity. It is mainly a stream of consciousness narration by the main character, Mackenzie, who is a sixth grader. Mackenzie literally wears her emotions on her sleeve, in the form of a colorful “haze” which surrounds her. She has learned to name all of her emotions by the colors. For example, bubblegum burst is the color name for when she feels very uncomfortable, like she’s going to “burst.”

The setting and idea of the haze are really unique. The rainbow color haze is presented as almost a handicap for Mackenzie, which is the reason her family moved to the “perfect” town of Serenity, Minnesota. To be a resident in Serenity everyone needs to assume positive intentions and see the good in any person or problem or difference.

I would recommend True Colors overall, but I gave it 4 stars because as an adult (retired teacher), at times I had to infer and re-read a lot to figure out the author’s intent. Also my feelings about the book were slanted because I'm not crazy about the first person point of view. It feels clunky to me, but that’s definitely personal opinion.

Thank you so much to Astra Publishing House and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

Mackenzie is a very interesting character, trying to control her haze of colors in a town full of happiness and joy but her emotions show in her colors. I really found it interesting seeing how she struggled to control them, the people were supposed to be nice and care but a lot of them were really rude and mean to her as though she were doing something wrong but she was just born that way.

The town was so cultish and interesting each a going at an almost robotic state, if me person does something the other does the same things, nothing moves or changes, nothing out of the ordinary or misplaced. Each person knowing their lives as it’s supposed to be. Then a documentary maker somehow found out about them and comes to shake everything up in the town to record them, showing the way they lived.

The documentary being made was so much fun as it brought new girl to town, plus her mother and it got people starting to act differently, say different things and it was just fascinating. I loved the interviews learning about everyone having different feelings, and altered lives to what was shown on the outside. Especially after the incidents with the haze.

I really liked that Mackenzie found her friend, one that knew all about hazes, that wanted to help her with everyone in town, to help them learn and understand it more, it took her down a bit of a rabbit hole but in the end was really worth while as the town all adjusted to it all.

It’s a very unique story and the characters are all interesting, the town is so fascinating and the color haze thing is so different I really liked it. It’s like a dystopian world but within the real world. I enjoyed seeing how each person actually lived, how the story unfolded in ways I didn’t really expect at all and seeing that everyone ended up closer somehow, was such an interesting read.

I really enjoyed this book, I loved how it taught you about emotions, what each meant, how it’s difficult to hold them in, to not accept them, that everyone feels them but differently. It was such a cleverly written book and it dealt with so many issues but in an easy and creative way, each emotion or mix of emotions had a color tone and a name and I honestly loved learn more about them. Was so creatively written and it was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

The others in Mackenzie’s kindergarten class shunned her because of her colorful haze so the family moved to Serenity where “all are welcome” and happiness rules the day. Mackenzie’s colors reflect her feelings and as much as she tries to radiate blow-your-mind-lemon-lime and banana-cream-life’s-a-dream the others such as grumbly grapefruit, raging raspberry and worried watermelon won’t go away. And one day they explode and spread through the whole town. This is a fun way to show middle schoolers that pushing down those uncomfortable feelings is the wrong strategy. Acknowledging them and devising strategies to deal with them works better. The back matter recommends books for kids as well as adults who may need help in dealing with their feelings. Recommended middle grade read.

What would it be like to wear your emotions on your sleeve? That’s literally what MacKenzie Werner, whose emotions show up as a colorful haze around her body, has to deal with all the time in the book True Colors by Abby Cooper. Unfortunately, not everyone understands so her parents move the family to Serenity, where everyone makes lemonade out of lemons and only happiness is allowed. All seems to be going well until a famous film maker and her daughter come to town to make a documentary about Serenity. Can MacKenzie hide her true feelings from the camera? What happens when her haze explodes over the whole town and everyone else is now afflicted with the same condition? Can everyone truly be happy all the time or are true emotions finally unleashed?

I think this middle-grade book had an important message which was relayed in an original story line. It’s harmful to keep emotions hidden and try to pretend to be happy all the time. It’s important to work through those emotions, possibly with the help of a therapist, because as the book vividly shows, you can’t hide from yourself. The author acknowledges that feeling happy isn’t just about what a person thinks, but also about what you do. The book touched on several heavy topics, including bullying and loneliness, which are often experienced by middle schoolers. And it showed that you don’t know what everyone else is going through, even if their “colors” imply that they are happy.

I like how the story was written using first-person narrative. Most of the story was told from MacKenzies’s point of view; however, the author also included messages and chat board discussions to convey how others in Serenity were feeling. She added conversations with friends and MacKenzie’s parents, which were written as if they were being interviewed by the film maker. I did find the blurbs by inanimate objects, such as the hill, didn’t really add anything. I originally appreciated that MacKenzie named all her colors, but after a while it seemed to bog the story down a bit. My biggest complaint was the number of similes and metaphors the author included. I realize that this book was written for a certain age group, but it wasn’t necessary to constantly compare everything to something else.

I would highly recommend this book. Everyone should understand, and especially young teenagers, that maybe complicated and confusing feelings don’t make someone weird, different or bad, but makes people belong. It was an added bonus that the author included a delicious cookie recipe from MacKenzie’s father’s bakery, as well as other resources.

Thank you to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the eARC in exchange for the opportunity to provide an honest review.

I liked the book overall, but at times, it was definitely to saccharine and wholesome. That was inevitable for a type of book like this, but it was just too darn cheesy. I also thought that it leaned away from fantasy too much and felt stuck between fantasy and realistic fiction. I loved the hazes, but everything else was just OK. I would not read this book again most likely, but I would reccomend it to certain friends.

This would be a perfect book to assign to a middle school class. It's well-written, has engaging characters, and focuses on emotions and personal growth. Personally, I'm not sure why I picked it up, but I'm glad I did.