Randi Pink Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Author Randi Pink grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and went to a mostly white high school. She still lives in Birmingham, now with her husband and two rescue dogs. Here, she works for a branch of National Public Radio.

Randi was an undergraduate student of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s creative writing program.

Randi is a wife, an advocate, a mother, a fighter, a writer, and a friend, as well as so much more.

Randi’s childhood aspiration was to be the first female President of the United States. Her favorite book while she was growing up was “The Very Hungry Catepillar” by Eric Carle. When she is not writing, she can be found in her garden, and spending family time with all of her favorite people.

Randi’s novel “Into White” was a novel she had to write for a few reasons. One is that she just loves the book, and she encourages readers to check it out with an open mind. Another is that it was like a hairball that got stuck in her throat, making her unable to breathe until she had removed it and thrown into the world imperfect and whole.

She had been seeing a societal wave and felt that she was creating her work through fear. The novel was like bucking a system, both external and internal. Like Randi was swimming upstream in order to carve out a space for the offensive art that she enjoys reading.

While doing an assignment for a course on Children’s Literature, she got the idea for this novel. After she read the first fifteen hundred words out loud to her class, she realized that the world was actually ready for “TOYA” (which was the original title she had for the novel) and she got busy working.

During her early teens, she actually prayed for the power to change. She was done with her skin, her hair, and her quirky personality, even. She was finished with being herself. She prayed sincerely to be changed, and believed with her whole being that she would wake up a different person. On some level, she actually did.

She woke up the next morning feeling ashamed. Even at the age of thirteen, she saw the magnitude of what she had asked. Selfishness, shallowness, and disregard had been hidden under the prayer’s surface, so Randi buried it down deep. Decades later, she chose to dig this memory back up and from here, Toya was born. Toya is definitely not Randi, she feels, however it is this personal memory that represents the inspiration and foundation of “Into White”.

In order to do research for the novel, she took a drive around Birmingham to see how divided by racial lines the town was. Before she went on her drive, she knew on an intellectual level the town was divided. Experiencing this tour enlightened her in ways she is unable to fully articulate. Witnessing the division in Birmingham in this in-your-face way shut out any doubt that there are Toyas in this day and age, not just in Randi’s city, but everywhere.

Her second novel, “Girls Like Us” is an angry song that was sung from a quiet woman’s frustration. She was inspired to write the novel by the passing of rather shocking policies for abortion as well as other threats to women’s rights in both her home state and the rest of the nation.

It was written in just 31 days and then went from a rough draft into a polished publication in just over a year. She wrote the novel in order to untangle the overhand knot she was feeling in her stomach. It worked too, beautifully and creatively calming down her anxiety of the things to come.

Randi’s debut novel, called “Into White” was released in the year 2016. She writes young adult fiction. Her work is published by Feiwel & Friends.

“Into White” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2016. LaToya Williams, age sixteen, lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and goes to a predominantly white high school. She is so low on the social ladder that the other black kids disrespect her, too.

Only her older brother, Alex, believes in her. Until a higher power answers her one prayer to be anything except black. Voila. She wakes up with lily white skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. It is here that the fun really begins.

LaToya is a character that frustrated some readers, but they found that they understood her more deeply than any other character that they have ever read. Readers found this to be painful, incredibly important, heartfelt, and profound; it also features humor, home, and lessons about identity and learning to love yourself. Randi paints an unflinching portrait of racism (institutional, internal, and external), as well as the desperation to fit in.

“Girls Like Us” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2019. Set during the summer of the year 1972. Four teen girls. Four different stories. The only thing that they have in common is that they are each dealing with unplanned pregnancies.

In rural Georgia, Izella is wise beyond her own years, but she is burdened with the responsibility of Ola, her older sister, who just found out she is pregnant. Missippi, their young neighbor, is pregnant too, but she does not fully comprehend the extent of the predicament she is in. Her dad sends her to Chicago so she can give birth there, she meets Susan, the final narrator, who is a white girl and an anti-choice senator’s daughter.

Fans of the book felt a strong connection to each of these teen girls, and they wound up enjoying the novel more as a result. Some had a tough time putting it down, as the book instantly grabs you from the very first page and makes you keep wondering what is going to happen next for these characters. This book is very well written novel that makes you cry and hurt with each of these different characters.