The Blue Dress

For fans of Jasmine Warga and Starfish, an Iranian American girl navigates complicated relationships with her mother, her best friend, and her body image in this unflinching and ultimately uplifting middle-grade debut.

Sometimes Yasmin feels like her body isn’t hers. And it’s not just because puberty has mounted a full-on alien invasion, or that emigrating from Iran a year-and-a-half ago has meant one change after another. It’s also because her mother constantly pushes her to lose weight, like sewing Yasmin a beautiful blue dress for Persian New Year that is too tight on purpose. At school, it doesn’t help that Yasmin’s best friend, Carmen, is petite and close to her own mother, or that popular-girl Zoe always has a mean comment to spare. Yasmin is sure her crush, Jack, won’t ever like her the way she is, either. With the pressure to fit in closing in on all sides, Yasmin starts taking desperate measures. But if being thin is supposed to make her happier, then why does losing weight feel like losing parts of herself, too?

From debut author Rebecca Morrison comes The Blue Dress, a heart-rending, funny, and hopeful book inspired by her own life, relatable to anyone who has ever needed to break away from someone else’s vision of how they should look in order to embrace their true self.

©2026 Rebecca Morrison

Devoured it in less than 24 hrs!

I just finished and I am absolutely wrecked in the best possible way. Rebecca has written such a vulnerable, raw, and beautiful account of her childhood. It felt like sitting down with her for coffee while she shared her deepest secrets and fondest memories. I laughed, I cried, and I felt so privileged to learn how her early life shaped the incredible person she. A must-read for anyone who loves stories of resilience and raw honesty. Bravo!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️