Beige (novel)
Beige is a young adult novel by Cecil Castellucci. It was published by Candlewick Press in 2007 and is Castellucci's third novel. Plot summary. Katy Ratner Berneir is a fourteen-year-old born and raised in Montreal, Canada. Both her parents had substance abuse issues but her mother conquered them first so naturally she is the person that raised her. Katy has never been apart from her mother and has barely spent any time with her father. Even though she was raised with her mother and is extremely close to her, she is not a very important  character in the book. That is her background before the actual story begins to unfold. The protagonist finds out that she has go and stay the whole summer with her dad. She is not happy in the slightest way possible. She begins to ask her dad questions about her mother and is actually surprised to hear some things that she never knew. She starts hanging out with Lake Suck who is the daughter of her father's best friend. Lake is one of the key characters because she causes a lot of changes in Katy and helps her see life  from a different perspective. She has a lot of issues with Lake because of their personality and background differences. Katy gets introduced to a person named Garth Skater. Katy thinks Garth is a girl but later finds out that he is a boy. Garth is a huge fan of Suck (her father's band) and is really nice to everybody. There’s this boy named Leo that Katy has a huge crush on. She is eventually persuaded to try things out even if she doesn't like them. She eventually starts liking Trixie (her father’s girlfriend) and actually admires  her. Reception. "Beige" received both bad and good reviews. Influential school librarian and blogger Cindy Dobrez wrote, "Catellucci gives a fresh spin to the familiar exiled-teen plot by mixing details of the L.A. punk scene with memorable characters and witty dialogue. By the end of the story, Katy has lost some of her Beige ways, and the lessons she has learned will help her deal with a sudden change in her mother's plan." However, in a review for "School Library Journal", Emily R. Brown wrote, "This book lacks the details — from teenage sign language to sci-fi trivia  — that gave Castellucci's other books credibility."