While still coping with her parents' sudden divorce and having to start at a new school midway through her senior year, Noor and two new friends take a stand against book bans at their small-town Illinois high school.

Belen Dolores Itzel del Toro wants the normal stuff: to experience love or maybe have a boyfriend or at least just lose her virginity. But nothing is normal in East Oakland. Her father left her family. She's at risk of not graduating. And Leti, her super-Catholic, nerdy-ass best friend, is pregnant--by the boyfriend she hasn't told her parents about because he's Black and her parents are racist.

As she starts her senior year, six weeks after her brother Julian's suicide, Karmen struggles with strained family relationships, a distant best friend, and the search for understanding, but new friendships and a budding romance help her on her journey of healing and rediscovery.