A coming-of-age story of friendship, first romance and religious intolerance finds a 16-year-old girl in an affluent New York City suburb confronting her biracial identity for the first time when she relocates to her divorced mom's family home in Harlem. A first novel. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)

Fifteen-year-old Nevaeh Levitz is torn between two worlds, passing for white while living in Harlem, being called Jewish while attending her mother's Baptist church, and experiencing first love while watching her parents' marriage crumble. - (Baker & Taylor)

A powerful coming-of-age novel pulled from personal experience about the meaning of friendship, the joyful beginnings of romance, and the racism and religious intolerance that can both strain a family to the breaking point and strengthen its bonds.

Growing up in an affluent suburb of New York City, sixteen-year-old Nevaeh Levitz never thought much about her biracial roots. When her Black mom and Jewish dad split up, she relocates to her mom's family home in Harlem and is forced to confront her identity for the first time.

Nevaeh wants to get to know her extended family, but because she inadvertently passes as white, her cousin thinks she's too privileged, pampered, and selfish to relate to the injustices African Americans face on a daily basis. In the meantime, Nevaeh's dad decides that she should have a belated bat mitzvah instead of a sweet sixteen, which guarantees social humiliation at her posh private school. But rather than take a stand, Nevaeh does what she's always done when life gets complicated: she stays silent.

Only when Nevaeh stumbles upon a secret from her mom's past, finds herself falling in love, and sees firsthand the prejudice her family faces that she begins to realize she has her own voice. And choices. Will she continue to let circumstances dictate her path? Or will she decide once for all who and where she is meant to be?

"Absolutely outstanding!" --Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin - (Random House, Inc.)

Natasha Díaz is a freelance writer and producer. As a screenwriter, Natasha has been a quarterfinalist in the Austin Film Festival and a finalist for both the NALIP Diverse Women in Media Residency Lab at ARC and the Sundance Episodic Story Lab. Her personal essays have been published in the Establishment and HuffPost. Color Me In is her debut young adult novel. A born and raised New Yorker, Natasha currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

natashaerikadiaz.com
@TashiDiaz on Twitter
@NatashaErikaDiaz on Instagram - (Random House, Inc.)

Kirkus Reviews

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 smoo thly, 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. (author's note) (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 8 Up—Sixteen-year-old Naveah isn't seen by her peers as African American because of her light skin. When her parents separate and she and her mother move in with her grandparents in Harlem, Naveah is forced to recognize that her relationship with her racial identity is complex. As her father watches her relationship with her mother's Baptist family grow, he chooses to complicate matters by deciding that, instead of having a Sweet 16 party, Naveah should celebrate the Bat Mizvah she was never encouraged to have when she was younger. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Naveah begins a relationship with Jesus and struggles with her relationship with her cousins. Her cousins are very aware that because Naveah "passes" she is able to opt out of conversations about race while they cannot. In the midst of all this, Naveah learns some uncomfortable truths about her mother's past. While the author attempts to use journal entries to explain past events, the narrative complexity of the events does not translate well to the journal format and as a result, the narrative is not completely successful. In spite of that, this story of a young woman struggling with her multifaceted identity and the privileges that come with it fills a gap in teen fiction. VERDICT A worthwhile addition to any collection where contemporary realistic teen fiction is in demand. Recommend to fans of Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X.—Kristin Lee Anderson, Jackson County Library Services, OR