Soila is a lucky girl by anyone's estimation. Raised by her stern, conservative mother and a chorus of aunts, she has lived a life of privilege in Nairobi. After a harrowing assault by a trusted family friend, she flees to New York for college, vowing never to return home. New York in the 1990s is not what she imagined it would be. Instead of a golden land of opportunity, Soila finds herself shocked by the entitlement of her wealthy American classmates and the poverty she sees in the streets. She befriends a Black American girl at school and witnesses the insidious acts of racism her friend endures, forcing Soila to begin to acknowledge the blind spots afforded by the privilege of her Kenyan upbringing. When she falls in love with a free-spirited artist, a man her mother would never approve of, she must decide whether to honor her Kenyan identity and what she owes to her family, or to follow her heart and forge a life of her own design.