First published 2022
Reha stands out in her middle school hallways for all the wrong reasons. She is the sole Indian American student in a sea of faces that look nothing like hers. The weight of being different presses down on her daily as she moves between classes where she never quite belongs. Then her world shifts completely when her mother receives a leukemia diagnosis. Suddenly Reha must balance the ordinary struggles of adolescence with the extraordinary burden of watching her mother fight for her life. She finds herself caught between two worlds that demand different versions of herself. At school, she wants to blend in and disappear. At home, she must step up and help care for the person who has always cared for her. The poetry that shapes her story mirrors the rhythm of her fractured days, moving between moments of teenage worry and adult responsibility. Reha discovers that being whole means accepting all the pieces of herself, even when they seem to pull her in opposite directions.
Genres: american-fiction, contemporary, adolescence, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: India, United States
Period: 21st-century
265 pages · Library Binding · Youth Large Print
Content warnings: terminal-illness