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Colored Television (A GMA Book Club Pick): A Novel
A brilliant take on love and ambition, failure and reinvention, and the racial-identity-industrial complex from the bestselling author of Caucasia
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Community Reviews
Don't read the blurb on this book! It totally threw me off since the events it describes don't happen until much further in than you expect, and I think it made the beginning of this book drag for me. Which it didn't have to.
It starts off strong with a loud voice that's easy to read and a main character, Jane, with lots of things to say, and it's lucky I sympathized with what she had to say because hoo boy, I clung onto this later when she did things that were despicable, stupid, and insane, and I wanted to YELL at her to stop.
[very minor spoilers ahead]
The main character is mixed, self-describing as mulatto, and this identity is central to the book (hence the title). Jane is a novelist trying to write her sophomore book, and she has made it about all the mulatto history she could find from thousands of years ago to present. In doing this, it seems she's trying to figure out her own place within "her group" as well as the role of b/w biracial people in the world at large. Do they date white people, Black people, or other biracial people more? Should they focus their work on it as she does, or just chase success however it comes?
There's also a struggle of the hippy artist versus the sellout Hollywood-ist, and Jane's identity strongly influences her place in either role. As the starving artist, she is able to write her sprawling novel examining all the subtleties and nuances of being a minority, of being mixed, etc. But in the world of Hollywood, she's asked to commodify her minority status. There's a big message of representation is good... because it will get us money and awards!
Overall, the topics that come up were all familiar, but I enjoyed the discussion of them in both more serious and more lighthearted contexts. I thought there was a fair presentation of multiple perspectives.
Now for the parts where I wanted to SCREAM. Jane is so unfair to her friend Brett. She and Lenny make fun of him and act like being rude to him is acceptable just because he's rich and they're poor. Brett literally lets them live in his house for a year, letting their kids play with their kids' toys, everything! And okay, he was leaving anyway, so it would've been pretty mean to leave Jane and her family homeless while he had an empty house. He also says that it's to his advantage because his kid has a bearded dragon as a pet, and he wants them to take care of it. So I'm not saying Jane had to be totally indebted to him forever or anything, but they drink his entire wine collection (mildly bad) and she takes his idea and uses it to get in using HIS contacts! She is SO LUCKY that at the end, Brett says he gave up on the idea anyway. I don't care that it's a vague idea. It's just not on. And then when Brett reaches out to her, she repeatedly ignores his texts and calls, even though she KNOWS HE IS COMING HOME SOON? Like, did you ever think he wanted to talk to you about moving out because you are living in his house?? And then of course it's even worse because he was actually having a life crisis and getting divorced. Also, she repeatedly lies to her husband about working on a TV script versus her book, which stressed me out immensely. Both Brett and Lenny come around, which is very nice of them in my opinion. I didn't think lying to Lenny about her book was a that big of a deal, but if I were Brett, I don't know if I would've forgiven her that quickly. Thank GOD she gets her comeuppance in the form of her ideas getting totally stolen without any credit or evidence. Especially because if she had gotten into the Hollywood life she would've been completely insufferable.
I thought it was so funny at the end when the author has Lenny voice what all of us were thinking. Did you kill him???
This book reminded me of Yellowface a little because of its discussions of race and ethnicity in publishing/writing and because it just sounds so modern. The way Senna writes screams 2024 with all of its slang and cultural references in full glory. -1 aura for the lengthy discussion of the Kardashian family & co.
In conclusion, this is a fairly thoughtful page turner that might make you want to fight the MC if you're anything like me (someone who hated the first part of Parasite if that gives you any context). It was genuinely funny sometimes even if characters were not always likable. I see why this has generated a lot of hype. I rarely read books right when they come out, but I'm glad I read this one! There's a missing comma on page 105.
Rating: 4.5 stars rounded up
It starts off strong with a loud voice that's easy to read and a main character, Jane, with lots of things to say, and it's lucky I sympathized with what she had to say because hoo boy, I clung onto this later when she did things that were despicable, stupid, and insane, and I wanted to YELL at her to stop.
[very minor spoilers ahead]
The main character is mixed, self-describing as mulatto, and this identity is central to the book (hence the title). Jane is a novelist trying to write her sophomore book, and she has made it about all the mulatto history she could find from thousands of years ago to present. In doing this, it seems she's trying to figure out her own place within "her group" as well as the role of b/w biracial people in the world at large. Do they date white people, Black people, or other biracial people more? Should they focus their work on it as she does, or just chase success however it comes?
There's also a struggle of the hippy artist versus the sellout Hollywood-ist, and Jane's identity strongly influences her place in either role. As the starving artist, she is able to write her sprawling novel examining all the subtleties and nuances of being a minority, of being mixed, etc. But in the world of Hollywood, she's asked to commodify her minority status. There's a big message of representation is good... because it will get us money and awards!
Overall, the topics that come up were all familiar, but I enjoyed the discussion of them in both more serious and more lighthearted contexts. I thought there was a fair presentation of multiple perspectives.
Now for the parts where I wanted to SCREAM. Jane is so unfair to her friend Brett. She and Lenny make fun of him and act like being rude to him is acceptable just because he's rich and they're poor. Brett literally lets them live in his house for a year, letting their kids play with their kids' toys, everything! And okay, he was leaving anyway, so it would've been pretty mean to leave Jane and her family homeless while he had an empty house. He also says that it's to his advantage because his kid has a bearded dragon as a pet, and he wants them to take care of it. So I'm not saying Jane had to be totally indebted to him forever or anything, but they drink his entire wine collection (mildly bad) and she takes his idea and uses it to get in using HIS contacts! She is SO LUCKY that at the end, Brett says he gave up on the idea anyway. I don't care that it's a vague idea. It's just not on. And then when Brett reaches out to her, she repeatedly ignores his texts and calls, even though she KNOWS HE IS COMING HOME SOON? Like, did you ever think he wanted to talk to you about moving out because you are living in his house?? And then of course it's even worse because he was actually having a life crisis and getting divorced. Also, she repeatedly lies to her husband about working on a TV script versus her book, which stressed me out immensely. Both Brett and Lenny come around, which is very nice of them in my opinion. I didn't think lying to Lenny about her book was a that big of a deal, but if I were Brett, I don't know if I would've forgiven her that quickly. Thank GOD she gets her comeuppance in the form of her ideas getting totally stolen without any credit or evidence. Especially because if she had gotten into the Hollywood life she would've been completely insufferable.
I thought it was so funny at the end when the author has Lenny voice what all of us were thinking. Did you kill him???
This book reminded me of Yellowface a little because of its discussions of race and ethnicity in publishing/writing and because it just sounds so modern. The way Senna writes screams 2024 with all of its slang and cultural references in full glory. -1 aura for the lengthy discussion of the Kardashian family & co.
In conclusion, this is a fairly thoughtful page turner that might make you want to fight the MC if you're anything like me (someone who hated the first part of Parasite if that gives you any context). It was genuinely funny sometimes even if characters were not always likable. I see why this has generated a lot of hype. I rarely read books right when they come out, but I'm glad I read this one! There's a missing comma on page 105.
Rating: 4.5 stars rounded up
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