TW for this book include: ICE arrests, deportation threat, heavy discussions and depictions of menstruation (like enough that I feel it needs its own trigger warning), racism

I really wanted to love this book. I've had it on my watch list for awhile and it has, in theory, everything I should want in a story. But the pacing is frustrating and the world building, while steeped in a rice lore, isn't as flushed out as I prefer my stories be. I found the characters to be typical of a lot of YA spec fic where there just isn't a lot "there" to them. I don't know, it's possible this just wasn't the right book for me, and that's ok. It wasn't terrible it just didn't live up to the hype that I had seen for it.