I didn’t get what I expected from this book. It was good, but very different from what I thought it would be.

First of all, there’s a lot of racism coming from and directed toward nonwhite groups. I’m white, so I’m not qualified to talk about this. I think it was addressed well, but I’m not sure. If I find any ownvoices reviews, I’ll link them.

Second, there’s not one, but two cheating stories in this book, and I didn’t like that. At all. Cheating is horrible, and it was worse here because it was justified. One was resolved and I think it was fine, but the other was explained away rather than solved. That was definitely my least favorite thing about the ending.

However, I did like everything else about this book. It was full of strong characters and friendships, and the families grew on me too. There were a lot of people, but it didn’t feel overwhelming; I remembered them. Sana and Jamie were such a cute couple, too. And they were cross country runners! And they shared poems with each other! I never see either one of those things, so both of them made me really happy.

So while this did have problems, it was ultimately a fun, diverse contemporary read. ❤️