I loved that the solace and peace she found in her Muslim faith, but she was also honest about the parts of being a Muslim immigrant that weren’t easy for her. One thing that made this book really beautiful is that with Karina, her struggles are so balanced and nuanced. What I loved about this book is how, beyond the sweeping teenage gestures and extensive time spent agonizing over every little interaction that comes with a Young Adult romance, we’re looking at two people who are bravely carving a place for themselves in their own lives after spending years trying to just float along trying to please people at their own expense. What he needs is someone to believe in him-an anchor-and Karina is that person.
So while he has a reputation for being a “bad boy”, he’s actually a very sweet kid who plays piano like a master and loves astronomy. His brother has taken out a lot of his anger and sadness on Ace in a really vengeful and harsh way, and Ace has zero interest in engaging. His family split apart years before, and because of a failure in communication, Ace has essentially isolated himself from everyone in order to protect himself from feeling hurt. And that’s terrifying.Īce is in a prison of his own making, really. For her, she knows that if she pushes her family to choose between accepting her as she is or abandoning her, they may very well choose to abandon her. She wants to be her own person and knows what she wants outside of those parameters but she knows that being that person would very likely change everything about the way she exists within her family-and while there are a lot of things that chafe about her existence, she understandably isn’t willing to risk the things she does love about her family. She’s both held to very narrow and strict standards but also somewhat dismissed and unseen. At first, I kind of thought that’s what this one would be like, but it really threw me for a loop once I read on.
I always have to prepare myself for YA romance because I’m reading with my grown-up brain and it doesn’t normally compute very well with idealistic and irrational teenagers. It’s a Young Adult, so you’re in for some major teen angst, but in this case that angst is pretty understandable.
Overall: This book is actually achingly sweet. When she’s asked to tutor Ace, the school “bad boy”, she’s initially horrified–but she soon discovers that they have way more in common than she thinks… Plot: Karina (Myra) is a second generation Bangladeshi teenager dealing with a lot of pressure to succeed within a very narrow set of parameters. Heat Factor: It’s a lovely warm–first bloom of love and all that.Ĭharacter Chemistry: At first glance they’re opposites attracting but then it turns out they’re actually quite similar.
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