The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue: On Grief, Identity, and Coming Back to Colour
Author: Zoulfa Katouh
Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction / Magical Realism
Year Published: 2026
Standalone or Series: Standalone
Mich's Rating: 5/5
Best For: Readers who want emotionally layered YA about identity, grief, and belonging — with a quiet thread of magical realism running through it.
The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue is Zoulfa Katouh's second standalone novel, published in June 2026. It follows Jihad Dabbagh, a 17-year-old Syrian American girl in New York City who loses the ability to see colour after her mother's death. It's a book about grief, identity, and finding your way back to yourself — told through art, a sketchbook, and the slow return of colour.
I pre-ordered this one. That doesn't happen often. But after As Long as the Lemon Tree Grows, I wasn't going to wait. Received the copy a few days after the book's official published date.
I wasn't prepared for how much this book would put me through. Grief, anger, jealousy, fear — and then, quietly, happiness. Katouh's first book stayed with me longer than I expected. I wasn't sure a second novel would land the same way. It does. It more than does.
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Grief Has a Colour (Or the Absence of One)
Jihad's magical ability is seeing the world in heightened colour. Or she did — before her mother died. After that, everything turns grey. For a year, literally. That's the magical realism hook. The grief feels real first. The magic is just the shape it takes.
At one point, Jihad imagines what it would feel like to get colour back: "The colors will be there. I can find them in the sand. 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.". That passage is where the title comes from, and it earns it.
What got me was how slowly she actually comes back. There's no clean turning point. The first colour she sees again is red. Someone asks her what red means, and tells her: "I suppose it's such a vibrant, deep color that I see it associated with strong emotions or things that are impactful. I guess in a way, it's the colour of your soul?". She holds onto that. And then, very slowly, she comes back to the rest.
The sketchbook helps. Hidden in her mother's vanity, it's carved from a tree in Arwad — the Syrian coastal town her family comes from, a place Jihad has never been but knows entirely through her mother's stories. She starts painting her mother's life. The paintings start appearing as graffiti. She has no explanation for it. Neither does the book, really — and that's fine.
The slow return of colour is how the whole book moves. Nothing rushes, and that's the point.
A Name That Costs Something
Jihad means "to strive. To battle something big." The book lets that meaning breathe — and by the end, you feel exactly why it matters.
Jihad was born in New York. Grew up there. It is the only country she has ever known — and it still doesn't treat her like she belongs. That gap between where you're from and how you're received doesn't close just because you've lived somewhere your whole life. People see her name, see her hijab, and assume the worst. Not "different." Worse than that. She gets treated like a terrorist.
At Braxton Academy, the elite school her father sends her to after her mother's death, this follows her. She gets stared at, mispronounced, called things. A teacher doesn't bother to learn her name properly. The book doesn't soften any of that. Jihad is angry about it, and she's allowed to be. She says she doesn't want to be seen as the bullied girl — and she says it plainly, without framing it as a lesson for someone else.
Jamie's grandmother shares something with Jihad — how arriving in this country was hard for years, and then one day she woke up and realised it wasn't as hard anymore. That she hadn't even noticed the shift while it was happening. That line isn't triumphant. It's just tired and honest.
Then there's Jihad herself: "My freedom here is not true freedom. My freedom here is borrowed time; it's me apologizing for existing. I don't have freedom in my countries, and I don't have freedom here." And immediately after, she thinks of her sister — how she never backed down at anything in school, at work, in her life. One is the weight of it. The other is the only answer she has.
Being born somewhere doesn't guarantee you belong there. This book doesn't pretend otherwise.
Friendship Takes Longer Than You Think
The friendship dynamics here are more complicated than early chapters suggest. Jihad's childhood friend — her only real friend going in — gets put through something. I'm not going to say what. But when it happens, it stings. It's supposed to. (Sometimes friendships don't fall apart because of a single event. Sometimes it's just time, and distance, and not enough hours spent together anymore. This book understands that.)
New friendships form at Braxton. Slowly, cautiously. She has to figure out who's genuinely safe and who's performing safety. There are a few missteps on her side too, which is important. She's not a passive recipient of other people's goodwill. She makes calls. Some of them wrong.
Katouh doesn't tidy this up. Grief changes the version of you that people knew, and not everyone knows how to meet the new one. Some friendships survive that. Some don't. The book is honest about which is which.
The lesson isn't that good friends appear. It's that you have to learn to let them in.
What Muslim Representation in YA Actually Looks Like
This is worth saying plainly: Katouh weaves Muslim practice into the story without making it a plot point. Prayer, Ramadan, food — these things are just part of Jihad's life. They're not explained for an outside reader's benefit. They're not the source of tension or the solution to it. They're just there. What Katouh seems to be doing — quietly, across the whole book — is showing the world that Islam is a practice, a culture, a way of living. Not a threat. The goodness or evil in a person has nothing to do with the religion they follow. That message doesn't arrive as a speech. It arrives as a character you spend the whole book with.
(Malaysia gets a mention alongside other communities represented at a gathering. Honestly, I just felt proud seeing it there.)
The name meanings are handled the same way. "Jihad" meaning "to strive" has actual narrative payoff by the end. When she reaches the line "I am brave. I am Jihad.", you've watched her doubt herself enough times that when she finally says it, you believe her.
Her mother's story runs alongside Jihad's throughout — a woman who might have been an artist, who became a mother instead. That parallel is careful. It's not tragic-for-effect. It's just honest about what women carry and what gets passed down regardless.
Katouh doesn't write Muslim characters as problems to be solved. That, unfortunately, is still rarer than it should be.
Should You Read The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue?
Yes. Particularly if you've read Katouh's first book and want to see where she goes next.
This one is quieter than As Long as the Lemon Tree Grows — less crisis-driven, more interested in the slow work of rebuilding after loss. The magical realism is lighter here, mostly expressed through Jihad's relationship with colour and the sketchbook. If you need high plot momentum, this probably isn't your book. But if you're okay with a story that moves like grief does — unevenly, slowly, then all at once — it's a deeply good read.
It's also one of the more honest YA novels I've read about what it actually feels like to grow up Muslim in America. Not "here is what we suffer" — more "here is how we live anyway."
Jihad puts it best herself, near the end: "This school is not the end of my story. This year isn't the final brushstroke on my canvas. My black eye will fade, and the pain will disappear. But I will be here. I have so many years ahead of me.".
I gave it 5/5. I don't give that easily.
Mich's Rating: 5/5
FAQs
Is The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue a sequel to As Long as the Lemon Tree Grows?
No. It's a standalone novel by Zoulfa Katouh with no shared characters or storyline. Readers who loved her debut will likely connect with this one, but you don't need to have read it first.
What genre is The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue?
YA Contemporary Fiction with elements of magical realism. The magical realism is subtle — centred on Jihad's ability to see colour and the mysterious sketchbook carved from a Syrian tree.
What themes does The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue cover?
Grief, identity, belonging, art, Islamic representation, friendship, and the experience of being a Syrian American in New York. The themes are handled through character and situation rather than message.
Is The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue suitable for teens?
Yes. It's written for a young adult audience. It deals with grief and discrimination seriously but without graphic content. It's a thoughtful read for teens and adults alike.
How does this book compare to Katouh's first novel?
As Long as the Lemon Tree Grows is set during the Syrian civil war and is more urgent and crisis-driven. The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue is quieter, set in contemporary New York City, and focused on grief and identity over survival. Different in tone, same in how much it makes you feel.
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