COLOR ME IN

Schisms abound in the life of a half-black, white-passing, Jewish teen in New York City.

Since her parents separated, 15-year-old Nevaeh and her mother, who is deeply depressed, have lived in Harlem with her mother’s family, headed by her Baptist pastor grandfather. Not to be pushed out, her religiously unobservant father has set Nevaeh up with a rabbi to prepare for a slightly belated bat mitzvah. But rather than help Nevaeh feel more connected to her Jewish heritage, having to study Torah with elementary schoolers just adds to the disjointedness in her life. Her black cousins think she doesn’t understand their struggles, and wealthy kids at her fancy school treat her with derision. Her best friend, Stevie, is the one person who gets her, but when she starts dating Jesus, a neighborhood boy (his name’s pronounced the Spanish way—and there is not enough angst or Jewish humor paid to that irony), and spending more time pursuing a new passion, poetry, tensions arise. Sophomore year is fraught for Nevaeh, and for the most part debut author Díaz wields it smoothly, save for one forced plot device in the form of her mother’s old diary. In Díaz’ skillful hands, the many aspects of Nevaeh's intersectional identity are woven together so that they are, as in real life, inextricable from each other.

Broadly appealing and free of the melodrama often associated with half-this, half-that issue books.