The book is amazing and I will 100% recommend this to anyone because it covers important topics.

However, I think that the character Farida is a little much. She always preaches about inclusivity to her friends because she is Muslim and her parents are Iraqi refugees. I know the character means well in just teaching her friends to think differently about things, but it sometimes gets to the point where she’s being selfish. Like when Stella wants to quit the Class President election because of what is going on at home with her brother, Farida says ‘Are you kidding me? Quit? You drag my family into this mess and now you’re going to quit?’ First off, Stella was hesitant about running, to begin with, and only did so because she was pressured by Farida to ‘make a difference.’ I just think that if Farida was a true friend like she’s constantly saying she is, then she would think about Stella’s feelings about everything before thinking of her own life. There’s a huge difference between teaching about tolerance and being tolerant.

The only other thing that I would complain about is that the book seems to be on a merry-go-round about the same issue multiple times, I feel like it could have cut at least 2-3 chapters if it didn’t keep going back to the same thing; other than that, a great story.