I just have so many things I want to say but mostly wow and how can I learn more and I just am so glad that I got the opportunity to read and absorb this book. It is something that I will never forget.

Martha S. Jones’s The Trouble of Color is a deeply personal exploration of family, race, and identity across generations. As a legal historian known for her incisive scholarship on citizenship and Black women’s activism, Jones turns inward in this memoir-meets-family-history. It’s intimate and thoughtful—rooted in archival depth—but it didn’t fully draw me in the way I’d hoped. This memoir charts the story of Jones’s ancestors as they navigate the evolving definitions of race and belonging in America. The depth research into the historical records, description of photographs, and inclusion of oral histories presented a masterclass on weaving a historical narrative. What stood out most to me was how deeply personal this project is for Jones. She brings a historian’s rigor to her own lineage, and the research is clearly meticulous. However, I had a hard time keeping track of all the family members and their relationships—especially without having any prior familiarity with Jones’s family background. When I choose a memoir, I typically already know a bit about the subject, and that helps keep me grounded and engaged. With The Trouble of Color, I found myself getting lost in the web of names and timelines, which made it harder to stay emotionally connected. That said, I admire the work—Jones writes with grace and intellectual clarity, and the project will be especially compelling to family historians or readers exploring multigenerational stories.

An interesting look at both regular history *AND* family history within the author's own family tree, specifically within the confines of race, passing/not passing, and how that affects everyone.

While I found some of this book deeply interesting [and learned some very interesting history I had been unaware of], much of this book was [for me] confusing [with a very large cast of family members to keep track of], rather jumbled at times [lots of "then and now" scenarios], a plethora of minutia of the daily life of the author [which was, for me, not engaging at all and I will admit to checking out when this occured], and even when you finally find ot how this applies to the author [but not until the very end], I was left wondering just what the author was trying to convay and what we all were to learn from it.

The author narrates this book and even though she did have a propensity to speed the narration up, overall, she did a really good job and I was glad I was able to listen to this book. I would recommend the audiobook and would listen to her narrate again.

Thank you to NetGalley, Martha S. Jones, Basic Books and Hachette Audio/Basic Books for providing both the eBook and audiobook ARC's in exchange for an honest review.

As a family historian and genealogist, I found this book very engaging. After a DNA test revealed that I have a smidge of West African DNA, the 'color line' I didn't know I had is now a topic of great interest to me. The Trouble of Color hit the right notes--well-researched, thought-provoking, and an engrossing memoir. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I have read the academic works of Martha Jones, and I have read her books for more general audiences. This book, though, was a revelation. A family memoir of life along the "jagged color line," Jones employs her skills as a historian to tell the story of her father's family, starting with Nancy Bell Graves in the early 1800s. By doing so, Jones exposes the fictions of race in the United States that nevertheless have a real impact on the daily lives of Black Americans, both in the past and the present. Writing this memoir poses significant challenges for Jones, who was trained as a historian. She is deliberate and clear when documents do not corroborate one another, or when they do not reveal what she wishes they would. She records her questions and wonderings, rather than fictionalizing the stories of her family and the ways they subverted and survived the color line. Her family story serves as a microhistory that illuminates questions of color in ways that a more general, academic account could not, as well as engaging a different audience of reader. Jones is to be celebrated for exposing herself and her family so openly in service of this story.

An American Historian's family history and heritage through the trouble of color- being too little or too much. Martha S. Jones is such a skilled historian and great writer. I enjoyed hearing about her personal experience with colorism. Hearing about her journey to discover more about her ancestors was fascinating. It felt like she was a detective with so much care and attention to detail she gave. When she discovered more about Nancy and Betty, I celebrated her joy. She was an active participant in uncovering more knowledge and connection with those who came before her. I smiled at memories she shared about her summers with Musie. Her emotional intelligence is profound. Her care and tenderness in this book made me grateful as a reader.

Thank you a Netgalley and publishers for this ARC!

I have read a number of books on this same general topic - the murkiness of the color line that America has tried and tried to keep clear and hard. This book was very personal and compelling for that reason. In college, Martha Jones was questioned in a black studies class about her right to even be there, ostensibly because she didn't look black enough. From that point she was on a path to find out who she really was, who her ancestors were, and how she came from them.

In a way, it's ironic that a black person would question the credentials of mixed race people, given that the mixing was started by slave owners raping their property. But Jones turns this encounter to a lifetime of research and discovery that yields a multigenerational story of her father and his ancestors.

I love family history research, so that part of the book is a natural fit for my interests. Where Jones finds the story, and how she navigates between oral history and the documented record is interesting. The strength of the women of her paternal line, as they kept their families together and tried their best to make the system work for them, is inspiring.

I would have loved to have a genealogical table somewhere, so I could keep the lines straight, but I would review them in my head after each chapter to be sure I knew where I was.

Highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in American history and how we got where we are today.

This is a unique memoir that delves back generations into the author’s family history and races. I can see this book being part of the curriculum in a college multicultural or black studies class. Appearances don’t always tell the full story this book illustrates. I found the old family photos intriguing and almost needing to tell their story.