Lahni is not only the black adopted daughter of a white couple, but also the only black girl at the exclusive private girls’ school she’s been attending for years. As the students get older, they seem to be more aware of how Lahni is different rather than more accepting of her place among them. Because of this, Lahni has gone to some great lengths to not stand out in any crowd – including refusing to undress or dress in front of anyone in the girls’ locker room or to accept any school position that might put her in any sort of spotlight.

Whenever she feels frustrated or angry with something that happens at school because of her skin color, she comes home and fires questions at her mother:

I still don’t get why you wanted a black baby. Did you ever think that maybe it should have been a Chinese baby, or why not a white one? It seems to me a white baby would have made a lot more sense. Two white parents sending their daughter to a white, private girls school in New Clarion, Connecticut, would definitely make more sense than two white parents sending a black girl there…But I want you to explain to me again why you picked me to adopt! Whose idea was it – yours or Dad’s? Didn’t you think you’d be asking for a lot of trouble, considering you didn’t know anything about black kids?

Her mother’s calm, measured, heartfelt assurances that Lahni is the daughter they wanted assuage her anger and reassure her temporarily, but do little to soothe the rising feeling inside her that she just doesn’t belong anywhere.  Her discomfort at school is paired with a growing discomfort at home, as her parents’ marriage seems to be falling apart before her eyes. And now not only are they fighting about their relationship, they’re fighting about whether or not Lahni belongs at her school or should move to a more integrated public school. So how can she talk to them about the boy who seems to be stalking her, or the classmates who seem obsessed with boys and bodies? To make it all worse, just as she’s concluded that flying under the radar is the only way to go, she’s been nominated to compete in a school singing competition. Singing isn’t something that Lahni does alone – she’ll do it in a group, at school, and she used to sing with her dad, at home, in happier times – but singing alone? On a stage? In front of everyone? Not in her plans.

When she comes home from school one day, her mother shows her an ad she’s circled in the paper:  Church of the Good Shepherd. Interdenominational. We welcome all–regardless of race, creed, or sexual orientation. Her mother tells her that she’s been wanting to get back to church for a long time, as she hasn’t been since her wedding day. Lahni agrees to go. And it’s at that church that Lahni finds what she’s been looking for:  when she hears the choir’s amazing soloist perform, she knows that she wants to sing in that choir too. When Carietta, the soloist, and Marcus, the choir’s director and pianist, take her under their wings, Lahni finds the courage to confront all the demons in her life and figure out who she really wants to be.

There’s a lot of fantastic stuff here. There’s not a lot of action; this is mostly a character piece. The characters are compelling enough that the relatively simple plot is in no way boring. Wright surrounds the plot with a lot of smaller conflicts that keep you eagerly turning pages.

Despite living in New Clarion for years, Lahni is still stared at when people see her with her parents. A lot of her classmates still treat her like an oddity. Despite being their child for most of her life, she still has long moments of not understanding why her parents chose her. Were they trying to make a statement? Were they trying to prove something? Didn’t they understand how difficult it would be sometimes, for all of them? She struggles with these questions off and on throughout the book, and I’m sure she’ll continue to struggle with them for years.

There are a number of scenes where Lahni’s mother is having some emotional difficulty because of the trouble in her marriage, and at those times Lahni almost seems to be parenting her mother. These scenes had so much truth in them. Everyone’s had those moments, I think, when they saw their parents as human, as breakable, and had to step up and shoulder some extra maturity. Those moments are both empowering and terrifying. They become signposts on the road to adulthood; after you pass one, it is impossible to go back and see your parents as anything but incredibly human.

Wright does an excellent job with the character of Lahni’s mother. She is imperfect in a million ways, but her love for Lahni is at the forefront of everything she does. She freely admits that she adopted Lahni because she wanted her, and doesn’t seem to have done much advance thinking about what the racial differences between them might hold in the future. But she faces each problem with Lahni head-on, and doesn’t shy away from her daughter’s barrage of difficult questions. She acknowledges Lahni’s fears and doubts and lets Lahni’s anger wash over her, and then reaches out her hand to help her daughter through it all. Sometimes her efforts are clumsy and sometimes they are not, but they always come from obvious love. It’s a fully realized relationship and it is the heart of the book, I think.

I also loved the character of Marcus, the choir director who becomes a musical mentor to Lahni. He has some particularly moving dialogue, like this piece of advice he gives to her:

You got to remember, Lahni. When they call your name, it will be your time to tell your story. It’s not a race, you don’t have to hurry through it. But you don’t want to sing like you’re crawling through mud, either. Ride the music. Listen to the signals I give you on the piano and don’t just hear ‘em with your ears. Hear ‘em inside. What part of your story is this? He played a few chords from the beginning. And what part of your story is this? He played a few chords from the chorus. Can you feel ‘em touch different parts of you?

Bil Wright lets Lahni tell us her story, and every piece of it will touch a different part of you.

This book was read as part of the Color Me Brown Book Challenge.

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