Not Your Average Jo, by Grace K. Shim

Riley Jo is tired of being one of the very few Asian students in Bentonville, Arkansas. She's fed up with well-meaning people coming up to her and saying horribly insensitive things.  She dreams of going to a more diverse urban environment where she won't stand out.  And most of all, she wants to pursue her muse as a pop music guitarist. But her parents don't have a lot of money and her mother, who teaches at a local university can get Riley free tuition if she stays here.

Riley is convinced that she'll bloom elsewhere and finding a school where she can study music will be the ticket to making it as a pop singer and never having to settle down in small-town Arkansas. But as she is searching for a college that she could afford she discovers a private boarding high school for the arts that offers a contemporary music program.  And when she applies, she is accepted.  It's only for her senior year and, after she graduates, she'll have to come back home for college, but Riley hopes that within that year she'll be able to break through.

Things at school don't go as she would hope.  She discovers that prejudice and microaggressions are just as common in the big city and that the music industry is riven with racism.  She may have an opportunity to become famous, but it will cost her her self-respect.  Is it worth it?

The story is outlandish and implausible, but told in an entertaining fashion.  Riley is interesting, but she gets pretty prickly towards the end and the love interest is surprisingly played down.  Where the novel really focuses is upon prejudice (external and internal, outwardly-directed and inwardly-directed).  There's not a lot of revelations and occasionally things grow a bit preachy, but it's well-formulated.  I preferred to simply enjoy the fantasy of the storyline in which kids can just become pop stars by writing a few songs.