White Keys, Black Keys, Blended Perfectly

~Blended~
By Sharon M. Draper
Amazon ~ Powell's

Eleven-year-old Isabella’s parents are divorced, so she has to switch lives every week: One week she’s Isabella with her dad, his girlfriend Anastasia, and her son Darren living in a fancy house where they are one of the only black families in the neighborhood. The next week she’s Izzy with her mom and her boyfriend John-Mark in a small, not-so-fancy house that she loves.

Because of this, Isabella has always felt pulled between two worlds. And now that her parents are divorced, it seems their fights are even worse, and they’re always about HER. Isabella feels even more stuck in the middle, split and divided between them than ever. And she’s is beginning to realize that being split between Mom and Dad is more than switching houses, switching nicknames, switching backpacks: it’s also about switching identities. Her dad is black, her mom is white, and strangers are always commenting: “You’re so exotic!” “You look so unusual.” “But what are you really?” She knows what they’re really saying: “You don’t look like your parents.” “You’re different.” “What race are you really?” And when her parents, who both get engaged at the same time, get in their biggest fight ever, Isabella doesn’t just feel divided, she feels ripped in two. What does it mean to be half white or half black? To belong to half mom and half dad? And if you’re only seen as half of this and half of that, how can you ever feel whole?


This was another one that popped up as "if you liked The Hate U Give then try ______" back when the BLM movement was in full swing over the summer. I had a few opportunities to read it, but never really felt as compelled to as I had with other books of that subject matter. So it sat. But when I hit a bit of a reading rut and needed something quick to kick me out of it, I went ahead and picked it up again. I mean, it is Black History Month after all, so this was as good an excuse as any to finally cross it off my TBR list. Unfortunately, it seems my first inclination was correct—it wasn't nearly as compelling as I would have hoped.

I probably read the book blurb when I first decided to check it out, but that being over 6 months ago I honestly didn't remember it. Sure, I knew it was about a girl being from a mixed-race family and dealing with various troubles associated with that, but you can gather most of that from the cover alone. When I went to start this review and read through the whole blurb again, I couldn't believe how much of the book it described. I actually decided to omit the last paragraph because it completely gives away the end of the book. I mean, really, there's content warnings and then there's summarizing the entire story. Maybe let the reader read, huh?

This is a slice of life story, pure and simple. Isabella is a child of a white mom and a black dad, both of whom have agreed that divorce is the best option for them. After a few years of long-distance joint custody, her dad's moved back to town and now Isabella spends every other week in her mom or dad's house, along with their new significant others. Meanwhile she's also starting to notice racial injustices, both in and outside of class.

It honestly wasn't always clear just how long a time this book spanned. Each chapter starts off with establishing whether it's a Mom week or a Dad week for Isabella, so when each switches it's safe to assume that another week has passed. But the story is also framed around a piano recital that Isabella is preparing for and it's never really clear how close or far away it is. Case in point, toward the end of the book it's clearly established that the recital is "next Saturday", but when she brings it up in a conversation just after that she says it's in "a few weeks". So was that a flub from Isabella, a lie, or a typo?

Okay, so looking back for that quote I found that the story proper starts just after winter break and the recital (which effectively ends the story) is the 2nd week of June, but I still maintain that the time passage overall is still mostly nebulous, without much in the way for major landmarks (holidays, vacations, etc.).

Being more slice of life than story-driven also left me in the lurch with Isabella's conflicts, most of which went unresolved. A lot of things are introduced—racial profiling by businesses and police, "exotic" being used as an unconscious slur, feeling the need to actively dress/act against stereotypes, the political and emotional fallout after hate crimes, the effects of joint custody on a child's development, the guilt a child of divorce may internalize and repress, and more—but none of them are fully addressed, discussed, nor resolved.

This was especially evident when it came to issues surrounding Isabella's divorced family situation. Having had my parents divorce when I was young, I related a lot with her mental state concerning their constant fighting—particularly after the divorce finalized. So when each of her parents found new significant others, and then each in turn decided to remarry, I felt her confusion and guilt at not being 100% happy for their situations. But when other problems rise to the forefront at the end of the book, all of that confusion, guilt, uncertainty, and sadness is pushed aside for the crisis at hand, then never addressed before the story just ends.

And the story really does just end. Something huge happens to Isabella, the family rallies around her, she is ready to go home from the hospital and- the end! No repercussions from the event (besides news coverage), no discussion about what comes next, not even a mention about plans for the weddings (which had been the main cause for conflict up until this point), just the end. There isn't even any reflection on who Isabella is, how she's changed, or anything resulting from what's happened in the story. Nothing has seemed to change other than some traumatic events making the characters act nicer to each other for Isabella's sake. In fact, the title for this review is the last 3 lines of the book, not that I realized it when I chose it. But that's what I mean, there isn't any deeper meaning to those words at the end that you couldn't get from the beginning.

Overall, this story felt like it had a lot to discuss but nothing to say. Like I said, it brought up a lot of interesting topics, many of which would be great to discuss in class either concerning race relations or child psychology, but it never seemed willing to state a stance on any of them. I've been feeling disappointed in Middle Grade books' noncommittal stance on political injustices for a while now, so maybe I'm just looking for something that isn't there? Regardless, if you're looking for an entry-point into social justice issues, Black Lives Matter, or racial tensions, but don't want anything involving death or protesting, then I suppose this is a good option. I'll give it this: it doesn't give any answers for free.

Approximate Reading Time: 3 hours