ELEVEN KINDS OF BLUE

Art becomes a lifeline when a family dynamic shifts.

Middle schooler Margot Stafford has known her share of trouble; her mother is unemployed and struggles with depression. But things have been OK lately. Then Margot learns she’ll need tutoring to improve her math performance. Suddenly, she barely has time to see her best friend after school. Then there’s her mother’s boyfriend, JP, who recently moved in, his anger upending her quiet home. Margot starts working in a local art gallery, escaping her increasingly turbulent home life. Curious about some paintings she finds in one of the gallery’s closets, she takes them—compounding the troubles in her life. Wolff draws a clean distinction between the problems we’re handed and those we have control over. Margot’s helplessness in the face of JP’s increasingly violent outbursts and her inability to draw anyone’s attention to the problem, even her beloved older brother, also lends a bolt of desperation to the narrative. Margot’s plan for dealing with JP works to an unbelievably successful degree, such that it may strain readers’ credulity, but otherwise the book is honest in portraying the messy complications that come with close relationships. Major characters present white.

An introspective and adept coming-of-age tale.