What’s the book about?
What if you felt like you’d cried all the colours away? The heart-wrenching new story of friendship, loss and identity from the author of international bestseller As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow.
Joining an exclusive high school should be a fresh start for Jihad after her mother’s sudden death. But she’s the only Muslim student there; her hijab and even her name make her new classmates suspicious. Only one person treats her with kindness but Jihad can’t help questioning his motives. It’s hard to trust anyone when she meets indifference or hostility all around her. As tension mounts, she finds refuge in an old sketchbook and in the stories her mama used to tell her. She is determined to focus on making it to art school and a brighter future, but as she starts illustrating her mother’s memories, her canvas becomes bigger than she could ever have imagined. Can Jihad become as resilient as the true meaning of her name, and let the colour back into her life?
An unputdownable story about family, friendship, grief and trust from a masterful writer of the genre.
Recommended for:
Ages 13+
Three reasons to read it:
- Jihad is one of the most compelling protagonists you’ll encounter in YA fiction this year. She arrives at her new school carrying an enormous weight – the sudden loss of her mother, the isolation of being the only Muslim student, and the constant low-level hostility of people who distrust her before she’s said a word. Watching her navigate all of that while still holding onto her ambitions and her sense of self is genuinely moving. She’s not defined by her grief or her faith alone; she’s a fully realised person with dreams, doubts, and a dry, wary intelligence that makes her impossible not to root for. This is a character you’ll be thinking about long after you’ve finished the book.
- The way art and storytelling are woven into the narrative is extraordinary. Jihad finds her way back to herself through her mother’s old sketchbook and the stories her mama used to tell her and as she begins to illustrate those memories, the book opens up into something unexpected and luminous. It’s a story about grief, but it’s also a story about creativity and what it means to carry the people you’ve lost with you. The writing has a vivid, almost painterly quality that matches Jihad’s artist’s eye perfectly, and the magical elements that emerge feel entirely earned.
- This book is both deeply personal and urgently relevant. It doesn’t flinch from the reality of Islamophobia – the small hostilities, the suspicion, the exhaustion of having to explain yourself in spaces that were never designed to include you but it never reduces Jihad to a symbol or a lesson. She’s a teenager trying to survive a terrible year and make something of her life, and that specificity is what makes the book so powerful. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review for its ‘powerful exploration of injustice, identity, and the radical act of making oneself feel seen,’ and Ann Liang called it ‘a modern classic.’ For readers who want fiction that is both emotionally gripping and genuinely meaningful, this is essential reading.
Buy a copy of The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue here.
About the author:
Zoulfa Katouh is a Canadian writer with Syrian roots. A trilingual pharmacist, currently pursuing a master’s in drug sciences, Zoulfa is the first Syrian author to be published in both the US and the UK in the young adult category. When she’s not talking to herself in the woodland forest, she’s drinking iced coffee, baking aesthetic cookies and cakes, and telling everyone who will listen about how BTS paved the way. A dream of hers is to get Kim Nam-joon to read one of her books. As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow is her debut novel. Twitter: @thelemonwitch_
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