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meech1e's review against another edition
Too slow paced. Would definitely come back to it though.
mariahistryingtoread's review against another edition
2.0
If I had nickel for every time I read one book by an author that was great only for the 2nd to be an immense downturn I’d be so rich I could write my own debut novel and force people through the same experience.
The Henna Wars is actually Adiba Jaigirdar’s debut and taking that into consideration it makes sense that in some ways it’s not as good as Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating. Writing is hard and not everyone’s first book is the best thing they’ve ever written. It actually feels like some aspects were sort of play tested in this one to be improved in that one because of how similar specific things were. It’s possible it’s just coincidence because it’s the same author and I’m seeing a pattern that’s not there, but it did feel like reading a rough draft sometimes for what’s to come.
The synopsis makes it out to be a rivals to lovers' competition story. It is barely rivals to lovers and there is barely a competition.
When the competition was first presented in class I didn’t even realize it had officially started because there were no parameters mentioned. Their teacher tells them there is a contest and that there is a prize of 1000 euros and that’s basically it. But, like not only do contests have rules, but assignments have rubrics. Flavia and Nishat, both just start up their businesses, but it doesn’t make any sense that neither had to run it by their teacher before actually launching or have any requirements to follow. The timeline is so fast and loose, when the teacher asks for their business plan it’s 40% into the book. So either only like a week has passed in like 200 pages or it took weeks before their teacher asked for something that she logically would have requested on day 1.
The competition not having quantifiable benchmarks to meet made me disinterested in it. Whether or not one of the girls was winning was arbitrarily measured. Plus, Nishat spends the book getting dunked on so the whole thing was moot anyways. Even if there were metrics to meet she was losing basically from the moment she came up with the idea. Thus, there weren’t any stakes. It made the competition feel like a gimmick so this could catch some of the enemies/rivals to lovers crowd since that’s been very In the last couple years. The competition never truly mattered and Nishat never really stood a chance.
Her loss isn’t the problem. The real problem is that it’s so unbalanced.
I want tension. I want trash talk. I want sabotage. I want escalation. I want to take things too far. The fun part of rivals to lovers is how both sides ruthlessly pursue the same goal and realize that the relationship being formed along the way was the real prize all along. How are they supposed to realize that when Nishat can’t say squat to Flavia either way? Flavia has a very popular, intimidating cousin (Chyna) who immediately sways the public in her favor. She barely has to lift a finger and she’s winning. It was so boring a conflict because Nishat had nothing she could do to combat that. Every time she tried she was narratively smacked down.
Flavia is a mediocre character who I honestly did not want to see Nishat with. They have an argument over the cultural appropriation early on and then Flavia just sort of ignores their fight the rest of the book.
In this time she doesn’t apologize. She just acts as if they never fought and continues to flirt with Nishat as if Nishat didn’t have a serious disagreement with her. And Nishat just lets her. Despite Flavia insulting her culture, standing by her bigoted cousin for 95% of the book and literally calling Nishat a brat for ‘victimizing herself’ after Nishat lashes out when she was OUTED we’re still supposed to be happy to see these two hook up in the end. Nishat deserved so much better and I was disappointed that her arc wasn’t about realizing that feelings weren’t enough, respect was more important.
It reminded me of another book Darius The Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram. It handled this conflict very well.
Like Nishat, Darius is unsure Chip is gay. Unlike Nishat, Darius is out and has a boyfriend which Chip knows about. The whole book Chip is sending these weird mixed signals to Darius. But, Darius is sure Chip can’t be gay because his best friend - Darius’ bully - is a homophobic jerk.
Though I had issues with it overall, what I appreciated about the book was that in the end Darius rejected Chip. Not because he didn’t have feelings for him, but because his self worth was more important. Chip is best friends with a bully. When confronted he’d always just make excuses for him. He was unwilling to stand up for Darius even just as friends. While it makes sense a teenager would struggle with these things, it doesn’t obligate Darius to date Chip while he figures out how to do it. In fact, for someone like Darius who is on his way to demanding more for himself it would be a step backwards to date Chip while he’s in these early stages.
I wanted so badly for Nishat to recognize that despite Flavia being sorry and Flavia doing the right thing in the end, that did not automatically make Flavia good dating material. At least for right now. An open-ended ending with the expectation that someday if things are different, once time has allowed proper growth to set in, then the two could give it a go would have been much better. Especially since queer teens are more likely to accept substandard behavior due to the scarcity of queer partners in many areas.
The fact that the two do end up together also makes Flavia’s arc feel rushed. Like a few pages before the two make it official, they basically break up because Flavia is not ready to come out and Nishat does not want to push her, however, she doesn’t want to be a secret either. Then suddenly, Flavia up and tells her racist, homophobic cousin about them and is ready to be publicly out. I’m not saying she can’t have weighed the pros and cons and decided to change her mind. I am saying that it felt mighty convenient that Flavia was barely able to tell her cousin off for spreading racist rumors yet now she’s ready to pull the trigger on her own sexuality.
It felt like it only happened so Nishat and Flavia could get their happy ending. Which, I’m not opposed to on its face. It just needed to be written differently.
The two barely had any chemistry anyways. Nishat felt overly invested in Flavia to a borderline desperate degree. I understand teenagers fall quickly, but that goes hand and hand with what I said before about how important it is to encourage them to look past the haze of infatuation.
When they did talk I wasn’t sure why Nishat even liked Flavia all that much. I’m demisexual so I’m aware that my view of romance is different than most. If someone reveals problematic views I lose all interest in them immediately, not even consciously. It takes a lot for me to have a crush at all. So it is totally foreign to me that after Flavia hurts Nishat with the cultural appropriation, she is able to ignore that Flavia has this shady viewpoint? Like she doesn’t even bring it up again for discussion. The two do not talk about it at all until it’s time for Flavia to apologize 80% into the book.
If Nishat’s culture is so important to her then shouldn’t she be? I don't know fighting Flavia about it? Isn’t that where the enemies part comes from? Misunderstandings, miscommunication and/or ignorance? The trope, by definition, means the two should be butting heads about it all the time. That’s the whole point.
I sided with Nishat, but this is a multifaceted, nuanced, constantly evolving conversation. When Flavia argues with her she actually makes some good points. By refusing to engage further to explore the issue the themes felt underdeveloped, Nishat seemed spineless, and Flavia seemed self involved.
One of Nishat’s closest friends, Jess, is clearly racist and it’s never addressed properly.
Jess and Chaewon want to pull out of the henna business when they see Chyna and Flavia are doing it. Nishat tries to explain why she needs to do the henna business only for Jess to say that Chyna isn't racist because she's an asshole to ‘everyone’ indiscriminately. She accuses Nishat of trying 'to pull the race card' by calling it cultural appropriation. She argues that Flavia isn’t culturally appropriating since henna is part of several different cultures and who's to say that henna isn’t from Africa too? When it’s pointed out that Flavia is Brazilian not African she doubles down.
This incites a rift in the group as Chaewon and Jess are already closer and Chaewon, despite being a minority as well, enables Jess. When she calls later to apologize, her entire apology still contains a defense of Jess’ stance.
Rather than Nishat removing the lot of them from her life permanently, the two eventually patch it all up with a half hearted ‘I didn’t get it’ 90% into the book. And you know Jess doesn’t fully understand what she did wrong because predating this they were in a fight so she and Nishat haven’t talked basically this entire time (circumstances bring them together before this, but it's a special situation that warrants waving the white flag at least temporarily) and per Chaewon’s non apology you can assume she didn’t try to explain it to her either. That level of racism is unforgivable without some meaningful, tangible growth on Jess’ part. It also speaks to Jess' inner thoughts about racial issues in general seeing as she couldn’t even empathize with two of her best friends.
The fact that Chaewon enables Jess and the duo's concerning history of ganging up on Nishat to force their course of action was dropped.
The book starts with Nishat coming out to her parents and it does not go well. Her parents decide to treat it like a phase. Then when that doesn’t work they try to shame her back into the closet as it will hurt their reputation if people find out. There is even a moment when Nishat worries she’ll be thrown out of her home. It’s painfully, unfortunately, realistic. It’s a hard pill to swallow that your parents’ love is conditional.
She grieves the relationship they once had, she grieves the relationship she thought they had, she grieves what could have been. It’s heartbreaking that people who purport to love her can’t see how deeply they’re hurting her. For weeks her mother won’t even speak to her. Neither parent will look at her. They even ask a family friend over to try to ‘talk some sense into her’ wherein the character basically calls her sick for being a lesbian.
All that being said, you can imagine how wild it was that her parents out of nowhere have a heel face turn and are suddenly supportive and cool with her having a girlfriend over to the house and watching Ellen like it’s no big deal. There’s no indication of what the catalyst for this change of heart was. It’s baby steps, but still their attitude does a complete 180. It was unbelievably unrealistic given how well documented their homophobia was previously.
The shining light in the book that did not ultimately disappoint in some way was Nishat’s relationship with her younger sister Priti. Priti was a consistent, warm presence. I loved her. In a sea of YA books with dysfunctional sibling dynamics, it was a breath of fresh air to have these two so obviously adore one another. Priti was a true ride or die. Even when they made mistakes, their loyalty to each other was absolute. I was happy that Nishat had someone like that in her corner while everything crumbled around her.
The Henna Wars is cute enough, but it’s definitely flawed. I recommend skipping this one and moving onto Hani and Ishu instead. It’s so much sweeter, there is no forgiving the racist storyline, the character arcs pay off, the ending follows through on the plot threads established even though it’s bittersweet and the message is a lot stronger. If I had read this first I’m not sure I’d have read anything else by this author for a long time. As it stands Hani and Ishu is so good, even this disappointment won’t kill my excitement for the sapphic Titanic heist book she’s got coming in December.
The Henna Wars is actually Adiba Jaigirdar’s debut and taking that into consideration it makes sense that in some ways it’s not as good as Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating. Writing is hard and not everyone’s first book is the best thing they’ve ever written. It actually feels like some aspects were sort of play tested in this one to be improved in that one because of how similar specific things were. It’s possible it’s just coincidence because it’s the same author and I’m seeing a pattern that’s not there, but it did feel like reading a rough draft sometimes for what’s to come.
The synopsis makes it out to be a rivals to lovers' competition story. It is barely rivals to lovers and there is barely a competition.
When the competition was first presented in class I didn’t even realize it had officially started because there were no parameters mentioned. Their teacher tells them there is a contest and that there is a prize of 1000 euros and that’s basically it. But, like not only do contests have rules, but assignments have rubrics. Flavia and Nishat, both just start up their businesses, but it doesn’t make any sense that neither had to run it by their teacher before actually launching or have any requirements to follow. The timeline is so fast and loose, when the teacher asks for their business plan it’s 40% into the book. So either only like a week has passed in like 200 pages or it took weeks before their teacher asked for something that she logically would have requested on day 1.
The competition not having quantifiable benchmarks to meet made me disinterested in it. Whether or not one of the girls was winning was arbitrarily measured. Plus, Nishat spends the book getting dunked on so the whole thing was moot anyways. Even if there were metrics to meet she was losing basically from the moment she came up with the idea. Thus, there weren’t any stakes. It made the competition feel like a gimmick so this could catch some of the enemies/rivals to lovers crowd since that’s been very In the last couple years. The competition never truly mattered and Nishat never really stood a chance.
Her loss isn’t the problem. The real problem is that it’s so unbalanced.
I want tension. I want trash talk. I want sabotage. I want escalation. I want to take things too far. The fun part of rivals to lovers is how both sides ruthlessly pursue the same goal and realize that the relationship being formed along the way was the real prize all along. How are they supposed to realize that when Nishat can’t say squat to Flavia either way? Flavia has a very popular, intimidating cousin (Chyna) who immediately sways the public in her favor. She barely has to lift a finger and she’s winning. It was so boring a conflict because Nishat had nothing she could do to combat that. Every time she tried she was narratively smacked down.
Flavia is a mediocre character who I honestly did not want to see Nishat with. They have an argument over the cultural appropriation early on and then Flavia just sort of ignores their fight the rest of the book.
In this time she doesn’t apologize. She just acts as if they never fought and continues to flirt with Nishat as if Nishat didn’t have a serious disagreement with her. And Nishat just lets her. Despite Flavia insulting her culture, standing by her bigoted cousin for 95% of the book and literally calling Nishat a brat for ‘victimizing herself’ after Nishat lashes out when she was OUTED we’re still supposed to be happy to see these two hook up in the end. Nishat deserved so much better and I was disappointed that her arc wasn’t about realizing that feelings weren’t enough, respect was more important.
It reminded me of another book Darius The Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram. It handled this conflict very well.
Like Nishat, Darius is unsure Chip is gay. Unlike Nishat, Darius is out and has a boyfriend which Chip knows about. The whole book Chip is sending these weird mixed signals to Darius. But, Darius is sure Chip can’t be gay because his best friend - Darius’ bully - is a homophobic jerk.
Though I had issues with it overall, what I appreciated about the book was that in the end Darius rejected Chip. Not because he didn’t have feelings for him, but because his self worth was more important. Chip is best friends with a bully. When confronted he’d always just make excuses for him. He was unwilling to stand up for Darius even just as friends. While it makes sense a teenager would struggle with these things, it doesn’t obligate Darius to date Chip while he figures out how to do it. In fact, for someone like Darius who is on his way to demanding more for himself it would be a step backwards to date Chip while he’s in these early stages.
I wanted so badly for Nishat to recognize that despite Flavia being sorry and Flavia doing the right thing in the end, that did not automatically make Flavia good dating material. At least for right now. An open-ended ending with the expectation that someday if things are different, once time has allowed proper growth to set in, then the two could give it a go would have been much better. Especially since queer teens are more likely to accept substandard behavior due to the scarcity of queer partners in many areas.
The fact that the two do end up together also makes Flavia’s arc feel rushed. Like a few pages before the two make it official, they basically break up because Flavia is not ready to come out and Nishat does not want to push her, however, she doesn’t want to be a secret either. Then suddenly, Flavia up and tells her racist, homophobic cousin about them and is ready to be publicly out. I’m not saying she can’t have weighed the pros and cons and decided to change her mind. I am saying that it felt mighty convenient that Flavia was barely able to tell her cousin off for spreading racist rumors yet now she’s ready to pull the trigger on her own sexuality.
It felt like it only happened so Nishat and Flavia could get their happy ending. Which, I’m not opposed to on its face. It just needed to be written differently.
The two barely had any chemistry anyways. Nishat felt overly invested in Flavia to a borderline desperate degree. I understand teenagers fall quickly, but that goes hand and hand with what I said before about how important it is to encourage them to look past the haze of infatuation.
When they did talk I wasn’t sure why Nishat even liked Flavia all that much. I’m demisexual so I’m aware that my view of romance is different than most. If someone reveals problematic views I lose all interest in them immediately, not even consciously. It takes a lot for me to have a crush at all. So it is totally foreign to me that after Flavia hurts Nishat with the cultural appropriation, she is able to ignore that Flavia has this shady viewpoint? Like she doesn’t even bring it up again for discussion. The two do not talk about it at all until it’s time for Flavia to apologize 80% into the book.
If Nishat’s culture is so important to her then shouldn’t she be? I don't know fighting Flavia about it? Isn’t that where the enemies part comes from? Misunderstandings, miscommunication and/or ignorance? The trope, by definition, means the two should be butting heads about it all the time. That’s the whole point.
I sided with Nishat, but this is a multifaceted, nuanced, constantly evolving conversation. When Flavia argues with her she actually makes some good points. By refusing to engage further to explore the issue the themes felt underdeveloped, Nishat seemed spineless, and Flavia seemed self involved.
One of Nishat’s closest friends, Jess, is clearly racist and it’s never addressed properly.
Jess and Chaewon want to pull out of the henna business when they see Chyna and Flavia are doing it. Nishat tries to explain why she needs to do the henna business only for Jess to say that Chyna isn't racist because she's an asshole to ‘everyone’ indiscriminately. She accuses Nishat of trying 'to pull the race card' by calling it cultural appropriation. She argues that Flavia isn’t culturally appropriating since henna is part of several different cultures and who's to say that henna isn’t from Africa too? When it’s pointed out that Flavia is Brazilian not African she doubles down.
This incites a rift in the group as Chaewon and Jess are already closer and Chaewon, despite being a minority as well, enables Jess. When she calls later to apologize, her entire apology still contains a defense of Jess’ stance.
Rather than Nishat removing the lot of them from her life permanently, the two eventually patch it all up with a half hearted ‘I didn’t get it’ 90% into the book. And you know Jess doesn’t fully understand what she did wrong because predating this they were in a fight so she and Nishat haven’t talked basically this entire time (circumstances bring them together before this, but it's a special situation that warrants waving the white flag at least temporarily) and per Chaewon’s non apology you can assume she didn’t try to explain it to her either. That level of racism is unforgivable without some meaningful, tangible growth on Jess’ part. It also speaks to Jess' inner thoughts about racial issues in general seeing as she couldn’t even empathize with two of her best friends.
The fact that Chaewon enables Jess and the duo's concerning history of ganging up on Nishat to force their course of action was dropped.
The book starts with Nishat coming out to her parents and it does not go well. Her parents decide to treat it like a phase. Then when that doesn’t work they try to shame her back into the closet as it will hurt their reputation if people find out. There is even a moment when Nishat worries she’ll be thrown out of her home. It’s painfully, unfortunately, realistic. It’s a hard pill to swallow that your parents’ love is conditional.
She grieves the relationship they once had, she grieves the relationship she thought they had, she grieves what could have been. It’s heartbreaking that people who purport to love her can’t see how deeply they’re hurting her. For weeks her mother won’t even speak to her. Neither parent will look at her. They even ask a family friend over to try to ‘talk some sense into her’ wherein the character basically calls her sick for being a lesbian.
All that being said, you can imagine how wild it was that her parents out of nowhere have a heel face turn and are suddenly supportive and cool with her having a girlfriend over to the house and watching Ellen like it’s no big deal. There’s no indication of what the catalyst for this change of heart was. It’s baby steps, but still their attitude does a complete 180. It was unbelievably unrealistic given how well documented their homophobia was previously.
The shining light in the book that did not ultimately disappoint in some way was Nishat’s relationship with her younger sister Priti. Priti was a consistent, warm presence. I loved her. In a sea of YA books with dysfunctional sibling dynamics, it was a breath of fresh air to have these two so obviously adore one another. Priti was a true ride or die. Even when they made mistakes, their loyalty to each other was absolute. I was happy that Nishat had someone like that in her corner while everything crumbled around her.
The Henna Wars is cute enough, but it’s definitely flawed. I recommend skipping this one and moving onto Hani and Ishu instead. It’s so much sweeter, there is no forgiving the racist storyline, the character arcs pay off, the ending follows through on the plot threads established even though it’s bittersweet and the message is a lot stronger. If I had read this first I’m not sure I’d have read anything else by this author for a long time. As it stands Hani and Ishu is so good, even this disappointment won’t kill my excitement for the sapphic Titanic heist book she’s got coming in December.
remmslupin's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
tiahie's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75
Une lecture déséquilibrée ?
J'ai énormément adoré la relation sororale entre Nishat et sa sœur, Priti. Leur complicité était les moments doux du roman, c était des respirations lorsque justement, le ton était globalement tendu et sombre.
La thématique d'appropriation culturelle est centrale dans l'histoire et en sous-t ème, le coming out lesbien de Nishat, son outing à l'école, les relations conflictuelles avec ses amies dû à sa colère, légitime, vis-à-vis de l'appropriation culturelle qu'elle subit. Ajouté à ça, la romance qui ne me semblait pas nécessaire car elle venait diluer ces sujets si importants dans lesquels j'aurais aimé plus de réflexions encore ?
Ce que j'aime avec cette autrice, c'est la façon dont elle écrit les rapports de pouvoirs entre les adolescentes blanches et non-blanches, avec ce mur d'incompréhension et d'agressivité. Et à côté, il y a ses amies Chaewon et Jess et son crush, Flavia. Mon petit hic, c'est que Chaewon et Flavia qui sont entre autres, les seuls autres personnages non-blancs impliqués dans l'intrigue : elles ne portent pas plus de résonnance à ce que vit Nishat (sur sa colère sur le henné, le comportement raciste de Chyna, etc.). Chaewon apporte un soutien assez léger, s'entendant mieux avec leur amie blanche Jess, sans verbaliser son ressenti et ne fait pas une analogie avec sa culture coréenne ni sons expérience de personne perçue racisée. Et ce n'est jamais allé plus loin. Pour Flavia, c'est un personnage noir d'origine brésilienne, qui s'approprie le henné, en duo et encouragée par sa cousine blanche, Chyna. Jusque là, j'ai trouvé ça un peu étrange, mais pas irréaliste ? Enfin, l'appropriation culturelle peut venir de personnes non blanches également, mais c'était le seul perso noir. Et j'ai peur que ça tombe dans de la mysoginoir, ou un manque de nuances (avec d'autres persos non blancs et noir ?) ? Je reste un peu sur ma faim, sur cette partie.
Ça reste une lecture agréable cela dit. Mais je trouve qu'il y avait légèrement trop de thématiques abordées pour qu'elles soient toutes abordées jusqu'au bout ?
Plus, l'évolution des parents de Nishat et Priti est vraiment très mimsou. <3 C'est vraiment très cool de lire des histoires de personnages queer et racisés !!
J'ai énormément adoré la relation sororale entre Nishat et sa sœur, Priti. Leur complicité était les moments doux du roman, c était des respirations lorsque justement, le ton était globalement tendu et sombre.
La thématique d'appropriation culturelle est centrale dans l'histoire et en sous-t ème, le coming out lesbien de Nishat, son outing à l'école, les relations conflictuelles avec ses amies dû à sa colère, légitime, vis-à-vis de l'appropriation culturelle qu'elle subit. Ajouté à ça, la romance qui ne me semblait pas nécessaire car elle venait diluer ces sujets si importants dans lesquels j'aurais aimé plus de réflexions encore ?
Ce que j'aime avec cette autrice, c'est la façon dont elle écrit les rapports de pouvoirs entre les adolescentes blanches et non-blanches, avec ce mur d'incompréhension et d'agressivité. Et à côté, il y a ses amies Chaewon et Jess et son crush, Flavia. Mon petit hic, c'est que Chaewon et Flavia qui sont entre autres, les seuls autres personnages non-blancs impliqués dans l'intrigue : elles ne portent pas plus de résonnance à ce que vit Nishat (sur sa colère sur le henné, le comportement raciste de Chyna, etc.). Chaewon apporte un soutien assez léger, s'entendant mieux avec leur amie blanche Jess, sans verbaliser son ressenti et ne fait pas une analogie avec sa culture coréenne ni sons expérience de personne perçue racisée. Et ce n'est jamais allé plus loin. Pour Flavia, c'est un personnage noir d'origine brésilienne, qui s'approprie le henné, en duo et encouragée par sa cousine blanche, Chyna. Jusque là, j'ai trouvé ça un peu étrange, mais pas irréaliste ? Enfin, l'appropriation culturelle peut venir de personnes non blanches également, mais c'était le seul perso noir. Et j'ai peur que ça tombe dans de la mysoginoir, ou un manque de nuances (avec d'autres persos non blancs et noir ?) ? Je reste un peu sur ma faim, sur cette partie.
Ça reste une lecture agréable cela dit. Mais je trouve qu'il y avait légèrement trop de thématiques abordées pour qu'elles soient toutes abordées jusqu'au bout ?
Plus, l'évolution des parents de Nishat et Priti est vraiment très mimsou. <3 C'est vraiment très cool de lire des histoires de personnages queer et racisés !!
ccaitlinranae's review against another edition
4.0
the henna wars: 3.5-4/5
standard ya romance novel (which normally get 2-3 for me) but better because it’s gay. genuinely made me almost tear up a little at the end. a little disappointed because i didn’t know the whole coming out process would be the whole story- found the business and competition side more interesting. some of the side characters felt a little flat and i hate that there was so much plot built on miscommunication but overall good and made me happy. would recommend
standard ya romance novel (which normally get 2-3 for me) but better because it’s gay. genuinely made me almost tear up a little at the end. a little disappointed because i didn’t know the whole coming out process would be the whole story- found the business and competition side more interesting. some of the side characters felt a little flat and i hate that there was so much plot built on miscommunication but overall good and made me happy. would recommend
alexaliz's review against another edition
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
thepoetessa's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
cait_readsxox's review against another edition
5.0
This book had a fun plot (the henna booth rivalry) and had a wholesome cute romance. I love the two main characters (Flávia and Nishat) because of their chemistry and banter with each other. The author did a great job of writing a coming out story that touches on many subjects such as race, cultural appropriation, religion, cultural traditions, and bullying.
thelesbianlibrary's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5