The Henna Wars has amazing characters, POC, and LGBTQ+ representation. This is about how Nishat doesn’t want to hide who she is, but she doesn’t want to lose her family. It only gets harder when a childhood friend, Flavia, comes back into her life and Nishat falls for her. When a competition invites students to create businesses, both Nishat and Flavia choose to do Henna. As the story progresses, Nishat deals with being outed, homophobia, racism and realizes she needs to choose whether she should follow her heart to Flavia or keep her family happy.
I think the most compelling part to me was that it was a lesbian Bengali girl who struggled with her sexuality along with homophobia and racism. She also has to realize that she likes the girl who was supposed to be her competition. The thing I found to be really amazing was how her family came to terms and accepted her, making it a wonderful read.