Although she has considered herself a violinist since her childhood, the identity is slipping away from her as she must choose between attending a music conservancy to become a professional musician or select an unknown career path.

On behalf of School Library Journal, Francisca Goldsmith wrote that Finding Yvonne "seems underdeveloped" and "lack[s] the spark of energy of Little & Lion", which Colbert had published in 2017.

By the end of the novel, readers will understand that Yvonne's father is depressed, but it takes a long time to get to that realization [...] The nuances of passing and racial erasure in the contemporary African American community is one area handled here with grace and cogency".

[2] Deborah Stevenson, writing for The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, similarly highlighted how Colbert "credibly constructs a young Black woman negotiating complicated family dynamics" and called Yvonne "a compelling protagonist" who will "speak to readers thrown by the lack of certainty in their own futures".

[5] In 2018, the New York Public Library named Finding Yvonne one of the year's best books for teens,[5] and the audiobook received an Earphone Award from AudioFile.