Race
To say that this book exemplifies racial imagery would be a drastic understatement. The title is an allusion to a hypocritical cultural standard which stems from America's dense history of racial injustice, an idea which basically states that the Blacker a person is, the more exciting they are for entertainment or fetishism. The truth is that Emma-Lou is not a character deeply shaped by race per say, but rather, she is shaped by her environment, and the people around her react wildly to her skin, which is so dark it is blue.
School
School is the domain in which Emma-Lou understands her own character. Although to the reader, she is as plain as prose, the character herself has to undergo a process of experiencing daily life among a community of students to know where she might fit in in the grand scheme of the school's hierarchy. She finds school to be a hotbed for potential, and both in her private emotional life and in her academic and eventually professional life, she finds school as a source of opportunity, growth, and challenge. She is not someone who keeps her nose pressed to books either. Rather, she sees school as a genuine opportunity of understanding herself better.
Acceptance and rejection
Instead of division and arbitrary distinctions, this book asks the reader to consider being open to others. The imagery of acceptance and oneness is perhaps most clear in reverse. The novel paints a portrait of mistreatment, misunderstanding, and division, and Emma-Lou decides on her own to attempt making herself great. As she strives to fit in, she internalizes the social feedback she receives from others, and she always comes away feeling like her performance lacked. Ironically, the imagery points to the truth: her performance is irrelevant because her appearance (combined with the prejudice of others) makes her an outcast before she opens her mouth.
Romance
The second half of this book features a social novella where Emma-Lou encounters people who are dating, married, or in young families, and she is single, so there is a chance if she meets the right person, a love story could unfold. She meets Benson Brown, but before she gets a chance to get to know him well, she ends up taking care of a baby that is not hers which is essentially an abandoned child. That is a reverse portrait of her desire for romance and love. She desires acceptance, but without the dignity and respect from her community that she deserves, the journey to receiving love is a long and harrowing one.
