Malena and Ruby are transplants to a Jacksonville, Florida suburb--Malena from Puerto Rico after Hurricane María devastated the island, and Ruby from Seattle where she lived in her older sister Olive's shadow. The two meet by chance, in a high school bathroom where Malena is trying, at the school administration's orders, to stick pantyliners over her nipples. Supposedly she has violated the school's dress code by showing up to school braless and large-breasted. (Her back was sunburned, so she couldn't wear a bra without irritation.)

Ruby, a flat-chested girl from a liberal, activist, white family, thinks Malena is being mistreated, and encourages Malena to refuse to panty line her boobs. Ruby is not wrong, but she does have things to learn about positionality and white saviorism. Malena, too, has lessons to learn. Despite being bilingual--and proficient in a third language--she feels insecure about how her accented speech is perceived on the mainland, for good reason, so she lets Ruby take a lead in their rebellion.

I didn't realize at first that this book was dual authored (by someone with a Latine last name and someone with a German one, and now I'm curious how that worked. I feel like Ruby's story and white awakening overshadows Malena's. It provides great lessons for white readers, but I wonder if that's at Latine and other BIPOC readers' expense.