I really enjoyed Nishat's story - there were tense, stressful, uncomfortable moments shot through her life, but they were all beautifully handled and never did it leave me in emotional straits too dire. (The few moments I desperately grimaced and hoped something would not come to pass as I suspected . . . were brought around well rather than crashing.)

Nishat's bond with her sister is wonderful - from their ups and downs - and her struggle with her school, and her friends, and the rest of her family . . . very real, as well as very well done. The anxiety, fear, anger, and upset of dealing with racism, homophobia, bigotry and assumptions, and all, were equally real while not being torturous to read.

I loved the ending, in several senses, and I was most pleased with the way the story drew to a close. ( )

I'm irked that this book didn't address the art theft issue at all. It's totally fine and understandable that the focus is on cultural appropriation, but there's an especially odd moment where a character justifies her cultural appropriation of henna by saying, "being inspired by different styles of art is how art works, and I would know because I'm an artist." I just wanted to scream at little miss Artiste that by own logic she should ALSO know better than to steal an original henna design, which is exactly what she did. It never came up! ( )

Cute story, would have preferred this as book rather than audio book simply so I would know how to spell the words I needed to look up. I like the enemies to friends trope, I just find Nishat a little overly dramatic. A bit of a younger age reading demographic than intended for me, but its nice for its variety. ( )

This was my pick for my birthday this year. Loved it ❤️ ( )

This was super duper cute, despite all the prejudices poor Nishat put up with. I especially enjoyed that this was set in Dublin! And it was great how her friends/sister called her out when she was being self-centered, and I thought the talk about cultural appropriation, which can be a seriously sticky conversation, was really well done. And I'm so glad Jess and Chaewon won the competition! Although the hand made plushies should. Also Nutella ice cream was mentioned, always a bonus. ( )