Race and cultural identity
Race is depicted in this novel as a crisis for one sister, but not a crisis for the other. Whereas Anora makes friends easily with people in their low-income Washington community, Minisha struggles to get along with black people, noticing that their perception of her means that she is disliked. It isn't that she dislikes black people at all—she is just perpetually at odds with the kids in her community because she knows that she isn't exactly like them, but she is scared to be open about the way race shapes her community. Plainly, she isn't sure how to be herself, because she doesn't want to stick out, but she does.
Romance and security
The first subplot of the novel happens when the girls' father starts dating other women. This causes another crisis, especially for Minisha. Some of the women like the girls, and many of the girlfriends do not—there is even a girlfriend who openly mistreats the girl when their father isn't around. This story points to a theme, that there is a connection between romance and security. The father wants more emotional security, so he dates, but the girls just want the security of the status quo, so their desires are pitted against one another.
Success and happiness
Minisha struggles to find happiness, but at least part of that struggle is because she doesn't have any goals guiding her daily life, so on top of not really having that much fun (she isn't very popular) she also feels she is wasting her time and falling behind. When her father finally looks up from his own relationship drama enough to see what's going on with her, he guides her to sports, and when she has some tangible habit that she can do, she sees improvement over time, and slowly she realizes that she is happier and happier the more she invests herself in self-improvement and hobbies that are life-giving to her. That doesn't solve all her problems, but it rids her of the notion that she needs to be rich to be happy.
