I tend to be wary of first-person POV, especially from relatively privileged high schoolers (even knowing they’ll undergo major character development), but this one restores my faith in the stylistic choice — Tom is a good person to start with, just understandably uneducated about certain issues and influenced by his own biases and the prejudices of his family and friends.

The cast actually is pretty homogenous — it can be subdivided pretty neatly into the middle class Catholics in Enniston, the Somali Muslims, and the rich jerks from Maquoit, then Myla kind of stands alone, matching her narrative role — but they represent a diverse set of views and experiences, which is just as effective and important to see. Enniston as a setting is definitely more backdrop than major draw, which works; this story is more about the people who live there.

Some loose threads are left which could contribute to the themes, but as it stands I think the ending strikes a good balance between closure and realistic ambiguity.