Review Detail

5.0 1

Blue Beach Featured

Young Adult Fiction 175

The Troubled 1920s

June 02, 2026 (Updated: June 26, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Blue Collins lives in Santa Monica, California in 1929. Her parents own Blue Beach, a black beach located close to a white neighborhood. They have a snack stand on the beach, and live in a house close by. While not everyone wants them there, the local markets and even the town big wig, Daddy Curtiss, are supportive of the family and its enterprise. Blue, who is in high school, has a relationship with Ben, but her mother thinks that he is too dark complected. Blue's cousin Rita and her Aunty Caroline live with the Collins, and the older Rita is always giving Blue a hard time about setting her camp for someone more like the green eyed Joey. After a town celebration at the start of the summer, Blue senses some tension between Daddy Curtiss' son, Jack, and Jack's girlfriend, the popular Dottie. When Blue meets Ben on the beach to talk, the two discover Dottie's body. Knowing that Black residents will be accused if the body is found on Blue Beach, the two swim the body out into the sea and don't say anything to anyone. The town is upset at the death, but things are calm until Blue finds a note from Dottie in Ben's shirt, asking him to meet her. Rita gets a hold of the note and goes to the police. Ben goes on the run for his own safety, and Blue's family business is burned to the ground by the KKK. Ben's mother had taken care of Dottie when Ben was very young, and the two were good friends. Dottie's relationship with Jack was often difficult, but if the community can blame Ben, Jack doesn't have to be considered. While Daddy Curtiss offers to help the Collins family after the stand is burned down, does he have other interests at heart? This has some good twists and turns that I don't want to ruin!

Good Points

Murder mysteries are always popular, so it is a perfect way to introduce some interesting history into the mix. I knew that public pools, beaches, and even lakes were segregated, , but there are very few novels about how this affected young people. There is plenty of teen drama in the story that makes it seem like Dottie's boyfriend might be involved, but it was inspired to have the murderer be concerned more with the racial issues and the value of the Blue Beach land. Blue is just on the edge of so many of the problems in the community, so seeing everything from her perspective is quite interesting. The issue of colorism in the Black community is woven through the story. There are just enough details about the 1920s to add some interest, even though the murder mystery is first and foremost. This was quite a riveting read!

This is a little more young adult than Parsons' other books, as there is a scene where their is a delicately described attempt at rape.

Parsons has a good eye for historical fiction, and I loved her Clouds Over California (2023) and How High the Moon (2019). This reminds me a bit of Sundee Frazier's Mighty Inside, which also details the difficult position of being Black in a predominately white community in different decades of the 20th century. I would love to see Ms. Parsons write a book about the thriving Black community in the Greenwood district of Tulsa Oklahoma BEFORE the race riots of 1921.