⭐⭐⭐⭐.75/5 - Rounded up to a 5 for PageBound!

A phenomenal book. That’s the only opening sentence I can come up with for a book that was so beautifully written about the color blue, the history of indigo, and the way the color blue is so tied to the experience of being Black. I don’t know that I had any specific expectations when I picked this non-fiction book up, but I do know I learned more than I bargained for. Perry dove in deep, but in a way that kept the reading very accessible while never feeling ‘too’ academic. In fact, there are places I wish she’d gone a bit deeper, but what was touched on led to multiple rabbit holes. I would actually call this a ‘rabbit hole’ book, because there’s so much to look up and see for oneself while reading.

Helpfully, there are a few colored photos of works of art in the middle, which made me glad I had the physical version. Perry goes into the history of indigo producing, how tribes in Africa honed their methods for making beautiful gloriously blue shaded dyes, and how slaves held onto the color through nature and beadwork. Blue connects Black people in so many ways; the color of the ocean and being kidnapped then forced toward what might as well have been another world, the color of the sky equating to freedom, all the way down to how our skin can be described as so dark that it’s ‘blue-black.’

I’ve always been aware of colorism, I’ve been told I’m too light to be Black and too dark to be white, but we come in so many shades, who gets to decide what I am, but me? For a section of the book, Perry dives into what makes blues music, 𝐵𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐, and at one point I thought ‘I just know this author loved the movie 𝑆𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑠.’ She is so passionate about her subject matter, about a color I’ve taken for granted by not knowing all of its intricacies. She calls out the triumphs of the color blue as it relates to a lived Black experience, and also relates the sadness, the heaviness, of an entire people still seeing and living blue moments constantly.

There’s a review I came across (a negative one) that speaks to the language, that Perry is using a lot of words and not saying much. To that reviewer, who went on and ON about how smart they are (both at the start of their review and at the end), I say: read the book again. Does Perry use language itself as an art? Yes. And like all art, it’s going to be subjective. Not all art is for everyone, but her use of words was absolutely beautiful. It’s okay to need to look things up. It’s okay to not connect with every single sentence; the review reminded me of people ‘not getting’ the Lemonade album years back. Sometimes art isn’t specifically for you to get meaning out of, but that doesn’t make it bad.

That being said, I do have my own small criticisms. Is it a 6-star? Not for me, but it is still worth every second I spent reading it, and it earned each and every tab and highlight. The learning I did was phenomenal. I wish that with some topics, Perry hadn’t just skimmed the surface, I think it would have benefitted the book to do one or two more deep dives. I also think near the end the book began to meander, and it felt like there were at least two moments the book could have ended and been better for it. I believe the first 200 pages are better than the last 40 or so, but that isn’t enough to move my rating down lower. It will in fact round up to a five, so I very much highly recommend this book if it at all makes you curious.

“𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑏𝑙𝑢𝑒. 𝐼𝑡 𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒. 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛'𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝐵𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑘—𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡-𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑒. 𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑦, 𝐼 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑚𝑦 𝑏𝑙𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑔.”