Patina by Jason Reynolds

So, these middle reader series are just too easy to eat up. This is book two in the Track series and follows Patina who is the only girl of the four newbies to join the Defenders track team.

Patina, goes by Patty, has one of the more unusual family situations. She and her younger sister, Maddy, have been adopted by a white woman and her husband. Patty and Maddy are black, so there is some background friction about that which shows up initially in the first book Ghost. The friction isn't because her adopted mom is white, it's because Patty seems to feel like she needs to defend it. Her bio mom isn't out of the picture.

Her mother, Beverly Jones, is still alive and still involved in Patty's life but because she's a diabetic double amputee, she can't take care of herself and two little girls. That's where the adopted family comes in. They are actually Patty and Maddy's uncle and aunt who adopted them when things started to get out of hand. Like I said, unusual in fiction, but probably pretty common in real life.

So, while this is still about the running, this volume comes out a little more like a family drama. Patty's got a lot of choked down rage and anger. She's going to a predominantly white prep school and she's got a lot of static in her head about it. Strangely, while Patty feels out of place at the school, it doesn't seem like it's really a race issue. It feels more like a socioeconomic division which while it does often break along race lines, skin color doesn't really seem to be at the core of the alienation.

Clearly, there are more race themes in this book. While Ghost is definitely black, in his book it was really more about being in poverty than any kind of class friction. Patina is definitely struggling with some internalized friction.

I think Ghost was a more compelling character, but Patina is a good book too. I guess I just get tired of girl drama and there's no way to write this without girl drama.