I'm giving this two stars instead of one because I'm not the audience for this book and I bet that a more on-brand audience (adolescent, teen) would get into this a lot more than I did.

As it reads, though, it doesn't have a cross-over appeal for adults: Maya is immature and whiny, makes bad decisions, doesn't learn or grow, and is a total dick to her parents. I disliked her, and it's possibly because I'm too far away from her p.o.v. to have much empathy.

I didn't like the book for another reason, though, and that's the writing, which I found weak. Ahmed glosses over big plot points, gives too many trivial details (Maya's sneakers in a single scene are melon colored. Who cares? I do not.) and doesn't focus enough on developing Maya as a specific person. Ahmed instead relies on telling the reader that Maya wants to be a filmmaker, but I never really felt her passion for it; and she is otherwise wholly defined by the boys in her life, which is gross.

If you're young you might like it, and if you're a young person of color, especially with immigrant parents, you will probably find it much more interesting than I did. And I hope that the publishing of this book leads to other books by other, stronger writers with similar points of view who can tell better stories.