Eleven short stories set in fictional Maple Grove, New Jersey, feature diverse young South Asian protagonists. In the opening entry, “Check Yourself,” a chess tournament is where Chaya encounters her nemesis, a boy who not only beat her in the tournament the year before but who she overhead making racist comments about Indian people just before their match. That chess tournament takes place at the Maple Grove Community Center, which is featured in each of the interconnected stories. It’s the site of a coveted badminton class, a dreaded cooking class, and a wedding at which one young attendee is bittersweet and another dances happily. Individual family dynamics shine in these enjoyable offerings, while community becomes a central theme when the center’s funding is threatened, building to a closing story in which civic engagement and activism take center stage.