Review: All the Colors We Will See (and GIVEAWAY!)

This book made me t-h-i-n-k. All the Colors We Will See is Patrice Gopo's first book. The child of Jamaican immigrants, her parents move to Alaska where she was raised -- one of the only black children in a very white school ... a very white state. She then marries a South African man before they relocate to the Southeast corner of the USA. In the midst of her writings, she also discusses her time helping a white family on a mission trip in a black country. 

This is written from a Christian perspective which was especially appealing to me.

Among many paragraphs that made t-h-i-n-k was the following:

Other students ask my questions about what it's like to be a Jamaican American. They look to me to explain something they don't know. I answer their questions. I tell them how cultures mixed in my home. I talk of spaghetti on Thursday nights and brown stew chicken every Sunday. I mention my mix tapes with a Bob Marley track followed by a Brandy track. I hear my voice tells stories of childhood, of relatives who lived so very far away. A life in a short of in-between place. Not one side of a river, nor the other, but learning how to swim in the current. I mention how I sometimes wonder what life might have been had I grown up around more Jamaican Americans. Maybe in New Your City or somewhere in Florida. 

or this one:

Even as she spoke, I imagined the reach of Western culture extending like long fingers across continents. Black South African girls must have witnessed movies and television programs with fluffy white dresses and handsome grooms, just as I had a young American girl. "White wedding" seemed like a nice way to package the Western trappings of nuptial bliss as if bridesmaids, a minister, a wedding march, and a white dress made a marriage. Only later did I consider that the word white might not have meant the wedding dress as I assumed. Perhaps it could have referenced the people who originated the custom. 

And it is not just race she discusses. She discusses being a black woman in the field of chemistry. She discusses watching her parents lose their marriage as an adult. Being a mother.

Did I like this book. Well, I t-h-i-n-k I did. At some times, I felt that she was going overboard with her opinions about situations. But at other times, I wondered if I just wasn't see it correctly.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. 

P.S. I am going to have a give-away contest for this book. Please leave a comment below. In one week, I will randomly pick someone to give this book too!