Black, White, Other by Joan Steinau Lester

Black, White, Other

by Joan Steinau Lester

Twenty miles from Oakland, California, where fires have led to racial tension, multi-racial fifteen-year-old Nina faces the bigotry of long-time friends, her parents' divorce, and her brother's misbehavior, while learning of her great-great grandmother Sarah's escape from slavery.

Reviewed by readingwithwrin on

3 of 5 stars

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“Funny how an absence can feel like a presence, like that space practically glows with her outline and make me notice how she's not here.”

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Nina is a young woman who is biracial and is a freshman in high school, who is now also dealing with parents divorcing and households being split. Because of all of these changes she's angry and upset and confused. She doesn't know exactly where she belongs anymore. When she's at her moms she feels like things are missing, when she is with her dad's she feels like she doesn't fit their either with his changing opinions on things. Plus she has a younger brother who she feels like she needs to protect from the mean highschooler's all while still trying to maintain her friendships. Her dad is also writing a story about a family member that he wants Nina to help him with. This is also the one thing that helps bring her happiness in this trying time in her life.

Overall I enjoyed this book. Nina was a character that you were able to sympathize with and understand why she was feeling the way she was about her family situation changing. I was able to see kind of where the parents were coming from with Nina, but also at times I just wanted to shout at them PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR CHILDREN. Which would have made certain things that happened in the last quarter of the book not have happened at all. Which would have made this a more enjoyable story for me.
For the historical part of the book, I really enjoyed it. I like Nina found it a nice escape from the struggles that Nina was having and it was also really informative as well. As for how accurate this book is with representation I genuinely don't know. I hope it has some accuracy as it felt like it could with some of the feelings that Nina was having towards feeling torn into two different worlds and not knowing how to make them work as one.
If you know how accurate this is with representation please let me know.

>uThank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 31 December, 2016: Finished reading
  • 31 December, 2016: Reviewed