I'd really enjoyed Sabaa Tahir's fantasy books, so I was really excited to see how she was at YA, and oh my god it was so good! Thanks to @bookishfirst and @penguinteen for the early copy of this!
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Synopsis: Sal and Noor are two Pakistani-American teens who are trying to rekindle their friendship after a falling out. Sal's mom is gravely sick and he's doing everything he can to help the family motel survive, while Noor desperately wants to go to college but her uncle who takes care of her wants to stop her.
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This was amazing. Well-written and layered and powerful and emotional. There are a lot of triggers so definitely check those out before reading, but otherwise run out and get this ASAP. This gave me so much to think about and was heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time.
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Rage is an emotion that is not really addressed much in fiction, at least not in a meaningful way that I've seen. Rage usually only comes up with someone evil, someone who's resorting to violence. But this does such an amazing job of showing Sal's and Noor's emotions and how they change over time and how rage ends up being not only justified but necessary. I really appreciated how that was addressed here, and making Sal and Noor so incredibly real.
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Synopsis: Sal and Noor are two Pakistani-American teens who are trying to rekindle their friendship after a falling out. Sal's mom is gravely sick and he's doing everything he can to help the family motel survive, while Noor desperately wants to go to college but her uncle who takes care of her wants to stop her.
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This was amazing. Well-written and layered and powerful and emotional. There are a lot of triggers so definitely check those out before reading, but otherwise run out and get this ASAP. This gave me so much to think about and was heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time.
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Rage is an emotion that is not really addressed much in fiction, at least not in a meaningful way that I've seen. Rage usually only comes up with someone evil, someone who's resorting to violence. But this does such an amazing job of showing Sal's and Noor's emotions and how they change over time and how rage ends up being not only justified but necessary. I really appreciated how that was addressed here, and making Sal and Noor so incredibly real.