Rating: 4/5
05/20/2020 - 05/20/2020
"I am on cloud nine because this beautiful girl is holding my hand."
"White people like to pretend that race is only as deep as our skin. Maybe because the color of their skin gives them so many benefits, but race is so much more than that. Good things and bad things, and when you're brown or black, it shapes you in life."
"What I want more than anything else is to feel like being myself isn’t something that should be hidden and a secret."
I was back and forth with this book, but I still care about it a lot overall.
I grew up in a Southeast Asian family, and coming out was extremely rough. A lot of moments in this book hit really hard because I've had almost identical conversations. I think I would have really loved this book if I was in middle school. I think it reads more like a junior high novel, so the writing itself isn't really my thing. However, the points were strong, and I think the experiences were well done and heartfelt. I cried at one point too.
If I wasn't the person I am with the experiences I went through, I don't think this book would have been as poignant.
readthrough journal
I'm also from a Southeast Asian family, and when I came out, my parents also just did not speak to me. They were very against it, though my family got volatile.
The cultural appropriation situation where the white girl wears henna as an aesthetic is so gross. When the Nishat cries about it, it breaks my heart. Too often, Asians face discrimination from the same people who take our culture for aesthetics.
The Annalise Keating reference and then the How To Get Away With Murder name drop.
This book is all too real. When she says if she wants her parents to love her, she can't pick the girl. My heart, man.
Oh my god, she was outed. God, I'm so sad.
Synopsis
When Dimple Met Rishi meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this rom com about two teen girls with rival henna businesses.
When Nishat comes out to her parents, they say she can be anyone she wants—as long as she isn’t herself. Because Muslim girls aren’t lesbians. Nishat doesn’t want to hide who she is, but she also doesn’t want to lose her relationship with her family. And her life only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life.
Flávia is beautiful and charismatic and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat choose to do henna, even though Flávia is appropriating Nishat’s culture. Amidst sabotage and school stress, their lives get more tangled—but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush on Flávia, and realizes there might be more to her than she realized.
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