While the story was intriguing, the first ~100 pages are almost all exposition, with the main conflict not taking place until the Thanksgiving dinner. I wish we knew more about Emira’s POV - she was painted to be a fairly one dimensional, “lost” 20-something with no real aspirations. I feel like we got much more of Alix’s side of the story, including multiple depictions of her entire high school experience. 

Alix as a character was exhausting - even the spelling of her name suggests that. Her overbearing white savior complex was overwhelming and became trite by the end of the novel. She showed no growth and had little redeeming qualities, outside of her strange obsession with Emira, she even had an obvious favorite child. Her friends were no better and largely flat characters. I would’ve loved to know more about Tamra and how her proximity to whiteness caused her to act how she did.

The writing style wasn’t my favorite, and the dialogue left much to be desired. I saw a review saying none of the characters talk like real people and I agree. Dialogue felt  weirdly out of touch, formal, and overly casual all at once. 

Overall, I felt bad for Emira and wished she had more aspirations in life, but some people don’t, and that’s ok. Any attempts to make Emira a more complex protagonist were overshadowed by Alix’s rote antagonism. It’s fun when a book has a clear villain, but I wish Emira could’ve been more of a hero to herself.