Notes on Her Color

A Novel

De: Jennifer Neal

Narrado por: Angela Sullen

Gabrielle has always had a complicated relationship with her mother Tallulah, one marked by intimacy and resilience in the face of a volatile patriarch. Everything in their home has been bleached a cold white—from the cupboards filled with sheets and crockery to the food and spices Tallulah cooks with. Even Gabrielle, who inherited the ability to change the color of her skin from her mother, is told to pass into white if she doesn't want to upset her father. But this vital mother-daughter bond implodes when Tallulah is hospitalized for a mental health crisis. Separated from her mother for the first time in her life, Gabrielle must learn to control the temperamental shifts in her color on her own.

Meanwhile, Gabrielle is spending a year after high school focusing on her piano lessons, an extracurricular her father is sure will make her a more appealing candidate for pre-med programs. Her instructor, a queer, dark-skinned woman named Dominique, seems to encapsulate everything Gabrielle is missing in her life—creativity, confidence, and perhaps most importantly, a nurturing sense of love.

Following a young woman looking for a world beyond her family's carefully-coded existence, Notes on Her Color is a lushly written and haunting tale that shows how love, in its best sense, can be a liberating force from destructive origins.

©2023 Jennifer Neal (P)2023 Tantor

The narrator really takes away from the story

So the narrator’s attempt work through an Australian or New Zealanders accent to affect an American southern black accent is off putting to say the least. This is my only complaint so far- I’m gonna muscle through as I am only in chapter 9. But it’s really not a good fit for the story- imagine Nicole Kidman trying to play Celie in Color Purple and that what it sounds like.