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COLOR CODED: FINDING OURSELVES AND OUR STORIES
Have you ever felt like a misfit in your skin, career, gender, family, city, in the roles you played…or the ones you refused to?
In Color Coded, Urmila Menon paints an intimate portrait of self-discovery, identity, and belonging through vivid storytelling and soulful reflection. She unpacks the many shades of what it means to grow, love, and heal across cultures and generations.
Blending personal narrative with creative form and cultural insight, this book invites you to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with your truest self. Written with warmth and honesty, Color Coded is both a mirror and a map for women, immigrants, creatives, and dreamers, who oscillate between the polarities of belonging and acceptance.
Through fourteen pivotal chapters of self-discovery, the book invites you to reflect on your own journey using creative prompts designed to help
✨ Unlearn the stereotypes and conditioning that hold you back.
✨ Unravel who you are beyond the “shoulds” and systems.
✨ Rebuild a life that is authentically yours in spirit and pace.
This memoir, serves as a quintessential guide on finding purpose in pain, a powerful revolution of self-reflection.
It is an
Pick up the mic. Share your story. Pass it on.
In Color Coded, Urmila Menon paints an intimate portrait of self-discovery, identity, and belonging through vivid storytelling and soulful reflection. She unpacks the many shades of what it means to grow, love, and heal across cultures and generations.
Blending personal narrative with creative form and cultural insight, this book invites you to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with your truest self. Written with warmth and honesty, Color Coded is both a mirror and a map for women, immigrants, creatives, and dreamers, who oscillate between the polarities of belonging and acceptance.
Through fourteen pivotal chapters of self-discovery, the book invites you to reflect on your own journey using creative prompts designed to help
✨ Unlearn the stereotypes and conditioning that hold you back.
✨ Unravel who you are beyond the “shoulds” and systems.
✨ Rebuild a life that is authentically yours in spirit and pace.
This memoir, serves as a quintessential guide on finding purpose in pain, a powerful revolution of self-reflection.
It is an
Pick up the mic. Share your story. Pass it on.
214 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 15, 2025
4 people are currently reading
2 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 27, 2025
Color Coded is an honest and powerful book about identity and showing up with your voice.
What stayed with me is its authenticity — no masks, no performance. Just the courage to tell, simply, what has shaped her identity, how she has adapted, and when she chose to take space.
Creativity becomes a character in its own right, evolving throughout the chapters until it emerges as a form of resistance to discrimination — and ultimately, the hero of the story.
It’s a reminder that reclaiming our story doesn’t have to be loud.
It just has to be true.
What stayed with me is its authenticity — no masks, no performance. Just the courage to tell, simply, what has shaped her identity, how she has adapted, and when she chose to take space.
Creativity becomes a character in its own right, evolving throughout the chapters until it emerges as a form of resistance to discrimination — and ultimately, the hero of the story.
It’s a reminder that reclaiming our story doesn’t have to be loud.
It just has to be true.
December 16, 2025
Urmila writes with heart, her raw emotions rhythmically etched on paper - first a crescendo followed by a few short beats that keep your mind and heart glued to the music of her words.
I felt like I was reading about myself as a fellow South Indian and misfit. Someone who has survived and is now thriving. Who refused to be served racism, stood up, walked away and created a space for herself and others.
Highly recommend reading this if you are ready to be yourself. The reflective prompts are fantastic - a novel inclusion for a reader wanting to fully engage.
I felt like I was reading about myself as a fellow South Indian and misfit. Someone who has survived and is now thriving. Who refused to be served racism, stood up, walked away and created a space for herself and others.
Highly recommend reading this if you are ready to be yourself. The reflective prompts are fantastic - a novel inclusion for a reader wanting to fully engage.
December 27, 2025
Color Coded seems to be more than a memoir, it’s a mirror and a companion. Urmila’s ability to weave her personal journey into something universally relatable makes the book powerful. It doesn’t just tell a story; it creates space for readers to reflect on their own identities and struggles.
What strikes me most is the balance between vulnerability and strength: she bares her heart, yet the narrative is infused with resilience and hope. The inclusion of reflection prompts adds a unique interactive layer, transforming the book into both a memoir and a guide for introspection.
In short, this debut feels like a quiet but profound offering—a book best read slowly, savored, and revisited when one is searching for clarity or courage. It’s not just Urmila Menon’s story; it becomes the reader’s story too.
What strikes me most is the balance between vulnerability and strength: she bares her heart, yet the narrative is infused with resilience and hope. The inclusion of reflection prompts adds a unique interactive layer, transforming the book into both a memoir and a guide for introspection.
In short, this debut feels like a quiet but profound offering—a book best read slowly, savored, and revisited when one is searching for clarity or courage. It’s not just Urmila Menon’s story; it becomes the reader’s story too.
February 2, 2026
There are two things to love about this book. First is the focus on the other: her mother, grandmother, aunt, and the students she has taught. Second is how she confronts racial discrimination in Hong Kong and makes a career as an educator despite it. Her thesis on imagination and creativity being levers that lift people out of tough situations works best, in the didactic sense, in these two contexts as well.
The rest of the book is the worst of what memoirs have to offer.
The "I" occupies too much space here. This would have been okay if the persona were self-aware of their social standing within the Indian and global social structures, but they, unfortunately, do not seem to be. For example, they claim to be middle class when they are very clearly not; you can find multiple pieces of evidence from the text itself that betray their wealth and upper-caste status. To cite something specific: "With no domestic help, chores like cooking and cleaning were added to our plates even when we had no appetite for them."
They also make mountains out of molehills, like complaining about having to study and look tidy. When there are so many problems plaguing lower- caste and class Indians, I am not aligned with those who think their little annoyances are worth writing a memoir about.
Lastly, this functions like a self-help memoir and am generally dismissive of advice that are circumstance- and personal experiences-based. I prefer peer-reviewed, reproducible recommendations and insights from persons of significant authority instead. Case in point, Paul Kalanithi's memoir works because he was a world-class neurologist and literati who gives not-so-obvious insights into both fields.
With memoirs, unless the writer is already well established in their domain or subject matter, a work of creative nonfiction works much better, where the focus is on the aesthetics of language and presentation than something reliant on one's academic or professional authority.
The rest of the book is the worst of what memoirs have to offer.
The "I" occupies too much space here. This would have been okay if the persona were self-aware of their social standing within the Indian and global social structures, but they, unfortunately, do not seem to be. For example, they claim to be middle class when they are very clearly not; you can find multiple pieces of evidence from the text itself that betray their wealth and upper-caste status. To cite something specific: "With no domestic help, chores like cooking and cleaning were added to our plates even when we had no appetite for them."
They also make mountains out of molehills, like complaining about having to study and look tidy. When there are so many problems plaguing lower- caste and class Indians, I am not aligned with those who think their little annoyances are worth writing a memoir about.
Lastly, this functions like a self-help memoir and am generally dismissive of advice that are circumstance- and personal experiences-based. I prefer peer-reviewed, reproducible recommendations and insights from persons of significant authority instead. Case in point, Paul Kalanithi's memoir works because he was a world-class neurologist and literati who gives not-so-obvious insights into both fields.
With memoirs, unless the writer is already well established in their domain or subject matter, a work of creative nonfiction works much better, where the focus is on the aesthetics of language and presentation than something reliant on one's academic or professional authority.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews