Celebrate Valentine's Day with this romantic story of rekindling and rebuilding, from award-winning authors Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (Ace of Spades) & Adiba Jaigirdar (Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating)!
South Asia Book Award Honor Book!
When Said Hossain's favorite hometown librarian dies, he must return from boarding school for her funeral and for the summer. Too bad being home makes it a lot harder to avoid facing his ex–best friend, Tiwa Olatunji, or facing the daunting task of telling his Bangladeshi parents that he would rather be an artist than a doctor.
Tiwa doesn’t understand what made Said start ignoring her, but it’s probably that fancy boarding school of his. Though he’s unexpectedly home for the summer, she’s determined to take a page from him and pretend he doesn’t exist. Besides, she has more than enough going on, between grieving her favorite librarian and her broken family while helping her mother throw the upcoming Eid celebration at the Islamic Center—a place that means so much to Tiwa.
But when the center accidentally catches fire, the mayor plans to demolish it entirely. Tiwa and Said will need to put their feelings aside if they're going to get the mayor to change his mind. Will all their efforts be enough to save the Islamic Center, save Eid, and maybe even save their relationship?
really liked it!
"i absolutely loved it! as a muslim i find it really hard to come across accurate representations, but this was like *muah* chef’s kiss. i read some reviews and i do agree that kissing and being touchy isn’t representative of what a halal relationship is, i do feel like it wasn’t supposed to be a halal romance though? and it never claimed to be. i think it’s just trying to be relatable to muslim teens today cause yk we do stuff we’re not supposed to but at the end we love our religion regardless and we try to be a better version of ourselves. this isn’t making a lot of sense but this book just really spoke to me…it’s become one of my comforts and i’m definitely gonna be reading it whenever i need a pick me up."