True Colors
by Abby Cooper (Author)
Turning Red meets The Giver in this novel about a town where everyone agrees to think positively--but one girl, whose emotions manifest as colors, can't hide her true feelings.
In Serenity, Minnesota, everyone looks on the bright side, and that's on purpose: to live in this town, people have to agree to talk positively and only focus on the good things in life. For twelve-year-old Mackenzie Werner, who has the rare gift of her emotions showing up as a colorful haze around her body, this town seems like the perfect place; she'll never face the embarrassment of a grumbly grapefruit smog if everyone and everything is set up to be happy.
But when a documentary maker comes to town and starts asking questions, Mackenzie, overwhelmed with emotion, can't hold her haze back--and it explodes onto the whole town. Now everyone has their own haze, revealing their real feelings. As Mackenzie learns that emotions go beyond surface level, the whole town must reckon with what it means now that these true colors are on display.
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Publishers Weekly
A rare condition causes 12-year-old Mackenzie Werner's emotions to radiate around her in a rainbow haze in this cerebral, lightly fantastical novel by Cooper (Friend or Fiction). After Mackenzie was treated as a pariah in kindergarten, her parents moved the family to Serenity, Minn., population 1000, where negativity is forbidden and choosing happiness is an edict. Mackenzie yearns to blend in, especially when a documentary crew arrives to chronicle Serenity's "way of life," but a growing friendship with the filmmaker's free-thinking daughter, Rayna Scott, causes Mackenzie to question her place in Serenity and the world. When her vivid emotions erupt and her colorful aura spreads to other townsfolk, she and her parents endure new levels of scrutiny as Serenity's facade of happiness fades away. Grounding a plot reminiscent of The Giver against a contemporary backdrop, Cooper depicts Mackenzie's bright emotions and desire to conform via a first-person POV that resounds as vibrantly as the protagonist's rainbow glow. Insights from the documentary footage and Serenity paraphernalia add nuanced layers to this tale about idealism gone awry. Mackenzie and her family are white; Rayna and other supporting characters cue as racially diverse. Ages 10-up. Agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House. (May)
Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
JUV039230 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Bullying
JUV039020 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Adolescence
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