See No Color Hardcover – November 1, 2015

This book is perfect. I almost don't think I need to go beyond giving it 5 stars. Adequate words fail me in the face of such talent and skill in storytelling.The pacing is excellent, the structure classic without feeling forced - the steady build up of tension to a crescendo (emotional meltdown) followed by resolution and empowerment. The author depicts a very realistic, age-appropriate developmental crisis, aka "coming of age" story, of a transracial adoptee. It's a modern journey of discovery rarely told by transracial adoptees in contemporary fiction and there is not a wasted word or scene, completely natural dialogue and relationships and reactions between characters. It's just flawless.I don't feel like there is a lot more I can say without doing what the parents did in this book, which was to explain Alex to herself way too often. I hope I have read it as an anti-manual for adoptive parenting but I may never succeed in rising above the temptation of control, false as the illusion may be. And every kid, no matter what deck they've been handed, eventually has to find their own way in spite of their parents' best intentions.Inspirational quote, universal for anyone who feels freakish in a world that dictates a narrow set of norms, (not a spoiler but it is well into the journey):(Alex has discovered the world of online adoptee blogs and forums)" . . I reflected on the fact that I might not be as much of a freak as I always thought I was. Maybe I just belonged to an outlaw tribe. One you wouldn't even know was there unless you knew how to go looking for it. And maybe those of us in the tribe weren't responsible at all for what had happened to us, all the things that had made us who we were. Maybe we actually had nothing to apologize for. To anyone."

I love this book. I love that it tells a story about a transracial adoptee, but even before that it tells the story of a girl in the world. So there is the universal story of what it is like to be human and 16 and female and to have your parents have certain expectations of you, and then there is the artfully drawn story also of what it is like to have skin that does not match the color of your parents' skin. And to have a past narrative in your root system that has nothing to do with the parents you live with even though your roots are buried and presumably, non-existent and unimportant. To others.If everyone read this book, I feel like the world would be a slightly softer, more understanding place.

“See No Color” is a well written book that captures so many of the trials of the black and white transracial kid growing up in a white world.

This is a deeply emotional book about a teen girl facing the type of identity crisis many teens face, only exacerbated by the fact that she's a transracial adoptee. I was intrigued by this intimate look into the psychology of identity but less taken with the whole baseball subplot, which felt disconnected. There were a lot of threads in this beautifully written and generally satisfying book. The author is a transracial adoptee herself so that adds to the authenticity of the story and enhances the reading experience.

Interested read

Item was as described and arrived quickly.

This novel felt very authentic, and indeed, the author is herself a transracial adoptee. I found the story compelling, except for in some sections that had too much focus on baseball.The adoptive parents in the book are white and they certainly have good intentions, but they have their flaws. They think that they don't "see color," but this makes it easier for them to avoid confronting their daughter's reality. People look, people talk, people assume and people make it hard for her to reconcile the various aspects of herself when she has no one to confide in.The book is set in Wisconsin but the author is a fellow Minnesotan, and I'm looking forward to reading more books by her.

Identity in your teen years is often like fresh Jell-O, slippery, hard to mold and quivery. What if you're a different color than everyone else in your family and have absolutely no reference point as to what that means? Meet sixteen year old Alex Kirtridge, a transracial adoptee. She knows her father was black and her mother was white, but that's pretty much it. Black kids treat her as though she's some odd thing and her adoptive parents pretty much ignore her ethnic heritage, pretending they are colorblind. None of this helps her self image or comfort in her skin. She's really good at baseball and plays on her dad's team with her brother Jason, who is a year younger. At the time of her adoption, her parents believed they couldn't have kids of their own, but now there are two, Jason and a sister Kit who is several years younger. Kit seems to be the only family member who 'gets' Alex's feelings about her black heritage and pushes her to do something about it by showing her letters her real dad wrote to her. Alex's parents hid them and learning this, along with their contents, unsettles her even more as does her attraction and budding relationship with Reggie, a black pitcher on another high school team. What Alex does about her lack of self-image, her birth dad, her feelings about Reggie and baseball as well as her course in the future make this a very good book for teens with similar backgrounds as well as teens who want to understand friends or peers in similar family situations. It's a good choice for school and public libraries where issues like this are important.