While the premise of this book is quite interesting, and it sets the scene for some interesting conversation, dynamics, and events, it just didn't fully work out for me. The book itself reminded me a lot more of Blackout than I originally thought it would, largely due to the single night during a large community event set up, though I enjoyed how Blackout handled that premise more overall.

This book is quite short, and action-packed, and that unfortunately meant that it was lacking in some areas of development, especially regarding the characters themselves. The combination of a white girl and a Black girl trying to escape a riot and get home safely create a large space for discussion, and there were many moments where it seems like the authors were going to start this discussion, but every time the dialogue between the two characters fizzled out before it felt like any growth was made (especially on the part of Campbell, the white girl). We basically see them assuming a lot of bad things about each other, them getting frustrated with the others' assumptions, a conversation starting about how those assumptions are unfounded, but then never get to the step where growth comes from those conversations. Every time one of the two characters just gets overly frustrated and steps away, or more frequently, the action comes back in to drag the characters out of this discussion. It made the book feel like it had a lot going on, but not a lot of substance overall. I would have liked to see Campbell grow out of her naivety a bit more, though maybe I'm supposed to come away from the ending with the thought that she will continue to do so bit by bit over time.

Overall, it seems like this book wants to create a space for discussions about tough topics like poverty, racism, etc., and while I feel like this book does bring quite a few things up, it doesn't do so as strongly as I've found other books too. Perhaps if this book had been a little longer, or a bit more time was spent on expanding the discussions between Campbell and Lena and a little less action/boyfriend drama, it would've felt stronger overall.