About the Book

Title: This Book Might Be About Zinnia
Published: 2025

Cover Story: Misty Watercolor Memories
Drinking Buddy: A Thousand Times Yes
MPAA Rating: R (sexuality, violence)
Talky Talk: Suspension of Disbelief
Bonus Factors: Dual POV, Writers
Bromance Status: See You in 2042

Cover Story: Misty Watercolor Memories

I love good multigenerational stories, and while I don’t care for it when the cover tells us what the characters look like, this was well done.

The Deal:

In 2024, Zinnia Davis is trying to come up with an essay that will knock the socks off the Harvard admissions office. Her story of being a multi-racial child of unknown parentage adopted by a wealthy white family lacks ‘zing.’ When a famous author publishes a story about a little princess with a heart-shaped birthmark on her forehead–just like Zinnia’s–she begins to wonder if maybe the white author is her biological mother.

In 2006, a young Black girl named Tuesday Walker has aspirations of becoming a writer, despite having recently given her unplanned daughter up for adoption. She writes poems about her lost child with the heart-shaped birthmark, stories in verse that she’ll never show to anyone.

Zinnia searches for her mother and Tuesday misses her daughter. Will their paths cross someday?

Drinking Buddy: A Thousand Times Yes

Two pints of beer cheersing

The dad in me wants to hug these two girls. Tuesday is constantly reminded by her mother of her ‘mistake’, and yet still insists she try to do normal things, like go to prom. Zinnia sometimes feels like an accessory for her wealthy parents who have planned for her to attend Harvard since they adopted her. Wouldn’t it be something if amazing author Jodelle Rae West had secretly given birth to her? Think of the reunion! Think of the tears! Think of the Harvard essay!

MPAA Rating: R (sexuality, violence)

Tuesday is just trying to put her life back together after secretly giving birth (even Ezra, the idiot father of the baby, buys her ‘just sick for a long time’ story). But there’s a coworker, Justin, who thinks Tuesday is incredible, and wants to share her writing with the world. Meanwhile, Tuesday has to deal with a mother who is teetering on the brink of mental illness. And she’s missing her own daughter. But the child was adopted. Tuesday doesn’t even know who her own father is. What chance would her baby have with Tuesday and Ezra, who’s such a jerk…but plays the guitar and and is so handsome?

Talky Talk: Suspension of Disbelief 

There were times when I found myself rolling my eyes. No matter how wealthy a family, police from a city the size of Philadelphia are not going to organize a manhunt because an 18-year-old girl didn’t answer her parents’ texts for one evening after an argument (let alone it being on the news and all over social media). Tuesday’s family history got a little convoluted at times. Zinnia’s best friend Milo goes off to meet the author with her, not two days after his own sickly mother dies.

Still, the characters were very likeable, and the author pulls off the dual timelines very well.

Bonus Factor: Dual POV

The author did an excellent job of writing in two character POVs in two different decades. We learn all about Tuesday without giving away a lot of spoilers about Zinnia’s or her own past. The two women have a lot in common (such as both working as baristas). And I loved it when 2006 characters show up in the 2024 timeline, unrecognized by Zinnia.

Bonus Factor: Writer

When Zinnia reads the book by Joelle Rae West about the little, biracial baby with the same birthmark she has, she just knows that Joelle must be her bio mom. And when she meets her at an upcoming book signing, it’s going to be an emotional reunion. But the reader already knows that Joelle is not her mother. What’s more, it wasn’t Joelle who wrote that book, but Tuesday. How did Joelle get ahold of it?

Bromance Status: See You in 2042

But hopefully we’ll see something else by this author a lot sooner.

Literary Matchmaking

The Jump

The Jump is another fine book by the same author.

The Blackwoods

Brandy Colbert’s The Blackwoods is another great multi-generational book.

Every Time You Hear That Song

As is Every Time You Hear That Song, by Jenna Voris.

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a free copy (actually, two free copies) of this book from the publisher, but no money or free coffee.

Brian wrote his first YA novel when he was down and out in Mexico. He now lives in Missouri with his wonderful wife and daughter. He divides his time between writing and working as a school librarian. Brian still misses the preachy YA books of the eighties.