In a positive review published by Chicago Review of Books, Mary Retta praised Asghar's writing as "lyric, gentle, and fierce".[4] Retta compared the book's content to Asghar's web series Brown Girls, writing that like it, "the novel is committed to an honest portrayal of the lives of queer women of color".[4] Writing for Booklist, Allison Cho also praised Asghar's prose, saying that the novel contains "that same lyricism from her poetry collection".[5] In a review for the New York Times, Nicole Flattery praised Asghar's writing as "distinctive", but wrote that it "serves to mask commonplace observations" and was occasionally unclear.[3]
Asghar was nominated for the 2023 Young Lions Fiction Award for the novel, which was ultimately won by Zain Khalid's Brother Alive.[6] The book won the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction in 2023.[7]
