If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson is a novel which follows the story about two teenagers in a very Romeo and Juliet esque way. It’s about a prevented love and complicates the classic theme of issues with racism and interracial relationships. It’s set in 20th-century Manhattan and in many ways is a modern day Romeo and Juliet story. Elisha Eisen (Ellie) is a senior in highschool and a large portion of the novel is her memory of when she was 15 and fell in love with a boy named Jeremiah Roseblind (Miah). While Miah feels comfortable and confident in himself in his neighborhood, being a person of color, he does not when he’s at the “White bright” Percy Academy he has just started attending. He is already having a hard time after the split of his parents and is feeling alone and displaced in a way. He lives with his mom across the street from his dad and his dads girlfriend. Miah is on the basketball team and he sees himself playing in front of white crowds of people with not that much enjoyment. The two literally bump into each other at the beginning of the year in which Ellie’s books fall to the ground. Ellie, the Jewish white girl and Miah go to pick up the books when they start laughing. Their eyes meet each others and they immediately feeling a strong connection and attraction to each other. Ellie keeps on thinking about him once she returns home from school and starts getting distracted, something which her mom notices. Her mom, Marion asks her about it but Ellie doesn’t trust her enough to share her thoughts and feelings. She refers to her mom as Marion because she has abandoned her family twice already and Ellie has a fear of rejection. The first time she left, her older siblings cared for her but the second time she wasn’t as lucky and was left all alone. Her dad was a physician and worked very long hours and wasn’t really there for her in the way she needed. Ellie confided in her sister Anne about her crush on Miah and Anne is excited for her. Her enthusiasm drains a little when she finds out he’s black. She tells Ellie to watch herself and maybe not tackle the challenge of a biracial relationship similar to how Marion had cautioned Anne about a lesbian relationship. Ellie isn’t happy with this response and doesn’t end the conversation on the best of terms.
They don’t see much of each other in the next weeks until Miah transfers to her history class out of a remedial class where he’d been misplaced because of his skin color. They sit next to each other and find out that they have a lot of similar interests. They grow to like each other and begin spending more and more time together especially in Central Park where their being together often brings rude comments. Some people think that a black man is harassing her with unwanted attention and when a group of white guys see them together they begin to spit out very racist slurs at them. Ellie and Miah start talking about their reflections and thoughts on racism and Miah tells her a story about something that happened in his childhood where he was running in a white neighborhood with his dad when his dad exclaimed for him to stop. His father told him he would look guilty of something. Meanwhile, Ellie hasn’t told anyone else besides Anne about Miah and she tells him her fear that she used to believe her family would accept anyone no matter what color their skin was, but now she’s not as sure.
At school, the only person who would really accept the two of them together was Miah’s biracial friend Carlton who was from his neighborhood in Brooklyn. Other students didn’t really understand and would kind of just turn their head away. Miah brings Ellie to meet his mother who warmly welcomes her. They begin to spend Saturday afternoons together and Ellie decides to finally to introduce Miah to her family. But something tragic occurs and on his way from escorting Ellie home, Miah is so caught up in happiness about her he jumps through the snow imaging himself on the basketball court. He’s so zoned out and in the moment and he doesn’t hear the shouting of police officers on the hunt or a black male suspect and they shoot him. His mother invites Ellie and her parents to his funeral and they attend. The book ends with a return to the present where Ellie is 18 and about to graduate from high school and to go on to college. She states that time moves on before you are ready and there's nothing you can change about that.