I really enjoyed the writing, which was beautiful and tender at times, quippy at others, and solemn when it needed to be. The author captured quite a lot of nuance, which I appreciated. One spoiler-free example is the way the yards are described in Corona. The initial descriptions tell us that the old Italian inhabitants kept beautiful flower gardens that they tended meticulously. When the Pakistani families moved in they stopped gardening, and the yards became overgrown and wild. At first it is framed as a negative, an explanation for why the old Italian neighbors disliked them. But later Razia notes that in Pakistan the natural growth was beautiful, unencumbered, and free. That was what their parents knew their whole lives, so they had no reason to think they should change now.