The Color of Us

By: Jessica Park

Narrated by: Arielle DeLisle

Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Callie Evans isn’t exactly living her best life in Los Angeles. She dropped out of college, has been repeatedly fired, and is now literally watching paint dry at a hardware store for a living. This depressing existence isn't what she had planned for her early 20s, but here she is. Although she’s faced a shattering trauma, she’s learning that avoiding grief has owned her for far too long. A change of scenery might be what she needs to regroup and move forward.

Callie takes a few months away from her California chaos to handle renovations on her family’s old house in small-town Vermont. This temporary escape could be just the thing to ease the pain that crushed her past and continues to impact her present. And maybe, just maybe, she’ll get a chance to reconnect with a certain boy from her childhood, whom she’s now aching to see again.

When Callie rolls back into her hometown, she finds that her preteen crush, Danny, has turned into a wildly hot 20-something. The things that haven’t changed are his humor and kindness. But Danny’s hidden demons might possibly be even more painful than her own. As Callie spends the summer falling in love with cooking, home repairs, and hosting brunches for her quirky neighbors, she also fights falling in actual love with Danny. After all, she knows from experience that love is never guaranteed to last.

Only the summer will tell.

©2021 Jessica Daniels Park (P)2022 Jessica Daniels Park

What Color Do You See When You See Me

It took me a while to understand the title until Danny asked Cali what colors does she see when she sees him. This was for me a story of two people both broken in different ways that helped the other to see their true potential and love. For Cali she felt as though she was a failure until she went back to her home town. She lacked the confidence in herself, she hated LA and found herself in Vermont. Danny just wanted to be loved by someone that wouldn’t leave him. It’s a story of healing, friendship and love. Narration was great.

Finding home

Read by a lovely narrator that enhances the story rather than just reading it, The Color of Us feels like coming home. The author spins a lovely story with her usual charm, humor, love, a bit of trauma and growth.

Callie lives in LA with her mom and sister, unhappily drinking a bit too much vodka in order to choke down health foods and bicker with her sister. When she hears her mom on the phone talking about her childhood home she opts to go back to Wake and help get that house ready to sell.

And Wake is magical. Her childhood friend, Danny, is there with his incredibly lovable basset hound Shallots and a tool box. He helps Callie with the renovation of the house and Callie. Callie finds that Wake is home, learns she loves cooking and a cute guy with a pickup truck and a big heart.

A beautiful story of rebuilding your life

It's been a while since I have read (well listened) to a Jessica Park book and I am so glad I returned with this book.
Jessica gives life to her characters through her writing and Callie is a character that needed to be written. She's lived a life in California after the tragic death of her father, but has returned to her hometown and is reborn. The friends she had as a child and some new friends, bring her back to life in a way she never imagined.
I loved watching Callie change into a beautiful woman, more inspired, more confident than she had ever been.
Seeing her remodel her childhood home was a delight and inspired me to want to change a few things around my own house!

The connection between her and Danny is epic, but every character within this book brought something to the table (the brunch table, every Sunday). Wake, Vermont sounds like a delightful place to live and fall in love thanks to Jessica Park's beautiful writing.

The enjoyed the narration, my only dislike was the narrator's accents with a few of the characters but it did not take anything away from the audible or story at all!