3.5 stars 
 this one hurts me to review a little.. 
 I am a huge Ahdieh fan. TWATD is one of my favourite books and reading this all I could think was "Is this how all those haters critics of TWATD felt??" 
 I was unfortunately rather underwhelmed reading this! The writing, as always, was beautiful. 
 I loved the feminist parts, because duh, but Mariko just wasn't as fierce and was just a bit too confused and hedged too much and didn't have good enough plans for me to admire her. 
 "When he spat at her, she punched him again. 
 For all the times a man had caused her to feel fear. For all the times she'd been made to think something was wrong with her. For all the times she'd been forced to believe a girl was somehow less than a boy." 
 I loved the romantic interest, but he wasn't consistent enough for my liking. And my favourite thing about the romance turned out to be a lie. (view spoiler)[I was so very pleased that the love interest wasn't the lost son, the leader of the gang and all that because it was so different, but nooo (hide spoiler)] 
 I will read the sequel because of the writing and I guess it was kind of a cliff hanger there at the end and I guess I want to see how it ends. 
 "To me, you are magic."