I know this is a romance, but I was not expecting it to be loaded with so much social commentary that I could relate so strongly to. The male lead, Antonio Rivera, is a Latinx aspiring actor who has grown up in a poor gang infested neighborhood. His mother was employed as a housekeeper and spent her years raising her son alone since her abusive husband was jailed years ago. He is attending his first year of college at a prestigious school full of privileged, rich, and majority white students. His tuition is funded by a diversity program at the university. Antonio (who goes by the stage name Tony Rivers) has to deal with discrimination based on his socioeconomic status while dealing with the normal stress of starting college. We spend a lot of time in Antonio's head and he consistently worries about avoiding conflicts that may compromise his academic success. Tony ties his academic success to his ability to be able to not just have a better life for himself, but also for other people in circumstances similar to himself and his mother. He understands the sacrifices people like his mother have to make to "make it" in the U.S. As the child of an immigrant family myself, I was able to strongly relate to these parts of his journey. Tony chooses his stage name as a way of masking his Latinx identity. Since he has a lighter skin tone and his appearance is implied to be reasonably white passing. He is also revealed to have learned to mask his Hispanic accent as well, which added some more depth to his story. This really hits home for me as a Latinx person in the U.S., specifically because in the U.S. Hispanic/Latinx is treated more as a race than an ethnicity. A lot of people don't realize that Hispanic/Latinx people can have overlapping racial identities. In Tony's case, he is white passing enough only in appearance. His accent, his upbringing, and his other experiences set him apart from other white people in his school. To the other white people in his school he is as white as they are while they don't hear his very Latinx name, while they don't hear the Hispanic accent he has probably spent years hiding, or while they don't know what community he grew up in. Even within the story, as other characters learn about these aspects of his identity they treat Tony differently and  their expectations of him change based on their prejudices. I thought the social commentary was brilliant. 

We are quickly introduced to Tony's love interest, Allie, at the beginning of the story. She has grown up with a strong economic background and racial privilege. There are moments in the story that reveal that despite being open to a romantic relationship with Tony, Allie still has prejudices. She has moments where she has to check her privilege. I appreciated that despite her prejudices and those uncomfortable moments, you can tell that she has good intentions. I would say this is a pretty accurate depiction of what it is like for someone to have their world view questioned and then have to deconstruct their internal prejudices. Most people aren't blatant jerks when they have privilege. Often, they are like Allie. I think there is a lot of nuance there that is shown in the story. I'm looking forward to seeing more character growth from Allie in the next installment of this series. She grows a bit in this book, but I can see that there is potential for a lot more character growth. 

In addition, there is an exploration of sexism within the plot. Tony does ballet as a hobby and he is bullied for it on multiple occasions in the story. I found this ironic considering all of the students in the school are studying the arts which are traditionally considered a more feminine discipline. It is clear through incidents in the book that there are  certain art forms are more traditionally accepted for men than others.  Unfortunately, this seems realistic. Certain art forms are less respected than others in society, especially when done by a man. I thought it was some interesting commentary and added a lot of depth to the story.

Overall, I liked this story a lot more than I thought I would and I'm looking forward to the rest of this series.