The Color of Water

The Color of Water

I must say, the "Color of Water" was a book that gave me very mixed emotions. At certain points it had some very sad parts, and on the flip side it had some very happy and enjoyable parts. Overall, I would definitely give this book a solid 2 stars (**). I would recommend keeping this in the curriculum because it teaches many lessons throughout the book having to do with race and prejudice and religion and hardships that people endure throughout their lives to reach their goals. Also, each character struggled with who they really were and where they fit into their world. Many people today struggle with many of these issues.

Ruth had a hard time admitting she was white and she was brought up in a harsh Orthodox Jew family. It wasn't easy for her to live her life the way she wanted to. Her parents forced Judaism on her and so she resented religion. Ruth was a very tough and hardcore mother who wanted to get her point across. She had moved to Suffolk with her family when she was very young, and at only 17 years old, she moved out and went to New York. She then started working long hard hours at her aunt's leather factory and then returned to Suffolk later finding out that her mother was sick. In the meantime,' she was married to Andrew, who was a black man. Her parents didn't approve, so they disowned her. But Ruth ended up converting to Christianity which helped her find faith through her religion and she endured the separation.

James McBride's life wasn't easy either, similar to his mother's. I think that because James was biracial, he didn't know what direction to go in. I believe that part of him was very proud to be black in that time of life and he would agree with his friends that white people were evil but then on the other hand, his mother was white and he was confused by all this. He was upset when his stepfather died and not sure where he fit in and his grades start dropping, and he became involved in doing drugs and in drinking. Then he spent some time with his sister Jack in Louisville, Kentucky and worked with black men and started to turn himself around. Ruth decided to get the family and move to Wilmington, Delaware. There James had finally earned a scholarship and pursued his study in music, and writing. Finally he had a career in the jazz industry, and was an excellent writer.

I didn't care for the writing style of this book because it was very hard to follow. The book took place in the past and it was about what happened to Ruth and James. But then James talked about the present and his life now and I got lost quite a few times trying to keep whose life was who's. I learned a couple of lessons by reading this book, one of them being that when life gets hard no matter how hard it gets, if you have the will to keep trying, there is always going to be a moment where