Blog Tour Review: The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue by Zoulfa Katouh

Hi friends, I’m excited to be back with a blog tour review today! I’m here to share my thoughts (and a few favourite quotes) as part of the blog tour hosted by Toppling Stacks Tours for The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue by Zoulfa Katouh.

Thanks to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

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The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: 2 June 2026
Genre: YA Contemporary

Rating:

^{(4.75 pandas rounded up)}

📖 SYNOPSIS

From the celebrated author of As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow comes a poignant novel about a Syrian American girl who uses a magical sketchbook to turn her grief into art, painting miraculous murals of her mother’s life in Syria.

Seventeen-year-old Jihad Dabbagh has always seen life with a heightened sense for colors, one of many magical blessings the women in her family possess. But Jihad’s gift changes depending on her mood. When depression sets in, the world is a colorless oasis, and in the wake of her mother’s sudden death, the world has become a permanent shade of grey.

Broken by tragedy, Jihad’s family doesn’t believe her color loss. Her father sends her to the elite Braxton Academy to finish her senior year. There, Jihad’s name and hijab put a target on her back. Her haven comes in the form of an old sketchbook carved from a tree in her hometown in Syria—a country she only knew through her mother’s stories. Jihad hasn’t picked up a brush in over a year, but finds herself channeling the colors of her hurt, pain, and grief as she paints the story of her mother’s journey in Syria.

When graffiti of that same mural starts magically popping up all over New York, her art goes viral and the world takes notice, the threat of legal consequences is imminent. To reclaim her voice, Jihad will have to paint a new future for herself and Braxton, guided by the resilience of her mother’s story.

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⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, Classism, Murder (mentioned briefly in recounting)

OK, honestly, I do think this is a solid 5-star read, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how I wanted certain parts of that ending to be a little bit different—and it has been nagging at me since I finished this—so I’m giving it a 4.75. 🤭 That doesn’t really make it any less of a 5-star quality read, though, and it is also one of my favourite YA contemporaries in a long time!

TL;DR: The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue enraged me. It filled me with sorrow and sadness, and maybe even a lottle bit of hatred, but it also infused me with hope. I lost track of the number of times I cried while reading this—tears of anger and frustration at injustices, tears of grief and sorrow, and also tears of joy for true and simple kindnesses that were healing. Jihad and Jamie were complex and wonderfully crafted characters and I loved the friendship that grew between them. By the end of this review, you’ll definitely be able to tell that this book made me feel MANY things. 😂 This was another stunning novel by Katouh and it has solidified her in my YA auto-buy authors list, because even if her stories always gut me, she always manages to soothe my heart by the time we reach the last page. What a gift!

Having read, been absolutely destroyed by, and loved As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow, I was excited to see what Katouh would bring in her sophomore novel and I wasn’t disappointed. Readers are in for a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, and intense story that will definitely make you cry and feel all the feelings from rage to sadness to hope to yearning to peace. I don’t always enjoy magical realism but the way Katouh used that to make Jihad’s art come to life was absolutely stunning. The murals that she created were so vivid in my mind and it made me sad to know that I won’t be able to look online and find these images anywhere. The art was magical, full of so much human emotion, and was a beautiful ode to a family of strong women, and mother stolen and gone too soon.

“Jihad means to strive. To battle something big. I fought for my life and won.”

I think one of the aspects that I appreciated the most is that the characters aren’t these perfect specimens who know how to immediately overcome the worst things that happen to them, and who keep fighting the systemic racism and bigotry they experience *daily* in “enthusiastic” and unrelenting ways. I think we’re often given these characters who are downtrodden and reach their breaking point, only to rise from the ashes like a phoenix to teach bullies their lesson, but this was different. While Jihad (and Jamie) never gave in to the bullies and didn’t “let them win”, Katouh also paints a very realistic picture of what it is like to exist as a POC in very homogenous communities. This was especially brutal for Jihad with a name that has been co-opted by the West to be something so incredibly harmful, and a hijabi.

“Hope is a fragile bird nesting in my ribs. I press my palms against my chest, praying it doesn’t fly away.”

While I wanted nothing more than to befriend and protect Jihad, I admit there were times it was tough to understand her. I wanted her to scream at the top of her lungs about what was being done to her and I wanted to shake her to stop hiding. I saw a few reviews talking about how it’s unrealistic that nobody would step up (save for Jamie) to defend Jihad, and for a moment I thought yeah, that’s right… But then I thought about all the stories I’ve heard about people experiencing this exact thing, and as sad as it is, in this increasingly divided, fear-driven, and individualistic society that we live in, it’s not hard to believe that this could happen. We see it on social media, on the news and in real life. We hear the stories and Katouh doesn’t shy away from that. She’s not giving us the “feel good” story where everything happens as it should—she gives us the story that’s heartbreakingly true for many.

Jihad reacting in the ways she does makes sense because at the end of the day, she’s a teenager experiencing some of the worst things that can be done to her, living every day fearing for her life, she’s simply doing her best to survive it. Jihad is such an incredible young woman whose strength and perseverance to keep rising in the face of horrifying and violating acts of racism and bigotry was astounding. I cried so much for her—seriously, crying all the ugly tears after midnight! 😭

“Maybe the ocean water would paint me blue and the sun’s rays would make me glow like gold. Maybe my body will become translucent, and I will take in every color.”

Everything she experienced made me all the more grateful to know she had someone like Jamie in her corner. Honestly? This kid was my favourite part of this whole book! Jamie is a truly beautiful soul and a wonderful, generous, big spirited, young man. He was the perfect healing balm that helped soothe the ragged soul. He wasn’t perfect, but he was genuine and had so much kindness in his heart. He kept showing up for Jihad and being the friend she so desperately longed for all her life, and seriously, the way he would get lost in her words as she talked about her experiences, her art, her family was just so wonderful! HIS MONOLOGUE NEAR THE END?! No joke, just thinking about it now still manages to make me cry happy tears. Also, while the title of the book can also be about Jihad’s heritage, I also love how technically, it can also be about their friendship, especially knowing Jamie’s Vietnamese name and how for most of the story, Jihad is trying to get the colour back in her life, and her aura is blue. 🥹 It makes their friendship and the title feel even more precious and special.

“I want you to know she’s changed my life, and I’m just the beginning of along list of people who will absolutely love her. Thank you for her. Thank you for naming her Jihad.” He finally looks at me, smiling. “She’s all the colors of bravery.”

There were clearly a lot more feelings running beneath the surface for both of them, and while I *wish* the ending had given us *something* on that end for them, I understand why it didn’t go there. Their friendship and bond gave me so much hope and left me in awe—I adore them so much. 💜

“Gh’erbe, I think. No word in English comes close to the true meaning of the word in Arabic. The root word of it meaning “to withdraw.” From it comes many words with the same meaning. […] At its essence, it’s being a stranger in a strange country. A country that doesn’t feel the way home should feel. […] It’s a never-ending ache every person away from their homeland feels for the rest of their lives.”

I could probably go on about this book and talk endlessly about all the things it made me feel (it was the full spectrum of emotions) but I’ll just say: read it! Please, do yourself a favour and read this book. It’s beautiful. It’s important. It’s timely. This was the first book that I stayed up all night to read and finished in one sitting because I was riveted by the story and I needed to know how Jihad’s story ended. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone and everyone!

Zoulfa Katouh is the award-winning and bestselling author of the novel AS LONG AS THE LEMON TREES GROW. It’s been translated into over twenty-five languages and was a Governor General’s Award finalist and a Yoto Carnegie Medal nominee. Zoulfa holds a degree in pharmacy and a master’s in Drug Sciences. She resides in Switzerland where she lives as a Studio Ghibli protagonist who is surrounded by a never-ending stack of books that keeps growing.

Author Socials:
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