Proceed With Caution:
This book listed the following content warnings: instances of racism, homophobia, bullying, and a character being outed.
The Basics:
The Henna Wars is narrated by Nishat, a young Desi girl who just came out to her parents. They completely blow off her identity as a lesbian, leaving Nishat feeling...not good. Then she meets, or re-meets, Flavia, a girl she went to school with previously who just moved back to Dublin. She's completely enamored with her, at least until a school competition introduces some problems for the girls.
My Thoughts:
The Henna Wars was a quick read and one that I really enjoyed, but I couldn't help but feel like it was missing a lot. The author includes many important topics throughout, but never goes deep into any of them. I don't expect teenage girls to have all of the answers, but I wanted them to express some type of strong feeling toward what's going on with them. When they do, it read more like a pamphlet rather than their true feelings.
I did really like Nishat. I applauded her for wanting to come out to her family, even with the high possibility they wouldn't accept her. Her parents don't shun her, but they definitely don't accept her being queer. It is something that they work on though and that was nice to see. Nishat is also quite fierce in her beliefs. She won't let a pretty face distract her from what she feels is right! Of course, she does have her flaws, like abandoning her friends and sister when she gets laser focused. I found her believable though.
Now back to those glossed over topics. The Henna Wars deals most heavily with cultural appropriation, but also not really. Nishat has been learning how to do henna tattoos and decides to use that for her Business class project. Flavia also decides to do a henna business because she's an artist and likes how it looks. Obviously, Nishat is not happy about this and confronts Flavia early on, but she can't give her a reason to stop other than "It's my culture and you can't have it!" Yes, that should be good enough, but Flavia is 100% dismissive. Like she's not even listening at all, but then has a complete change of heart at the end so they can start dating. It was a very shallow look at the problem. It kind of felt like it was only brought up because it was trending. I wanted more from Nishat and Flavia!
This next issue is a bit of a spoiler, but I won't go into detail on it. Basically, Nishat is outed to her whole school. It's awful, but again, it's just glossed over. She didn't plan on coming out to anyone outside of her family, yet her reaction is just kind of "whatever." School faculty come to her to help her, but she rejects them. Then it's just kind of not talked about until much later when we find out who did it, and there are no consequences at all. It's just "Oh, *beep* did it and I talked to them about it." The end. What?!
I don't know. I liked The Henna Wars well enough while reading it. I liked watching Nishat get caught up in this competition and be willing to do anything to win. I do think it would have been stronger if her competitiveness was the focus of the story, and she was up against another girl whose culture uses henna, rather than the half-formed cultural appropriation revenge plot. The romance portion was also just okay, as Flavia came across as very aloof and was essentially the only possible love interest for Nishat.