It All Comes Back to You By Farah Naz Rishi
HarperCollins/Quill Tree Books
Two exes must revisit their past after their siblings start dating in this #ownvoices rom-com that is perfect for fans of Sandhya Menon, David Yoon, and Morgan Matson.
After Kiran Noorani’s mom died, Kiran vowed to keep her dad and sister, Amira, close. Then out of the blue, Amira announces that she’s dating someone and might move cross-country with him. Kiran is thrown.
Deen Malik is thrilled that his older brother, Faisal, has found a great girlfriend, even if it’s getting serious quickly. Maybe now their parents’ focus will shift off Deen, who feels intense pressure to be the perfect son.
When Deen and Kiran come face to face, they silently agree to keep their past a secret. Four years ago—before Amira and Faisal met—Kiran and Deen dated. But Deen ghosted Kiran with no explanation. Kiran will stop at nothing to find out what happened, and Deen will do anything, even if it means sabotaging his brother’s relationship, to keep her from reaching the truth. Though the chemistry between Kiran and Deen is undeniable, can either of them take down their walls?
Cover image and summary via Penguin Random House
This review was originally published in the November/December issue of Horn Book magazine and can also be found on the Horn Book website.
I Hope You Get This Message
by Farah Naz Rishi
High School HarperTeen 420 pp. g
10/19 978-0-06-274145-5 $17.99
e-book ed. 978-0-06-274147-9 $9.99
When the world learns that omnipotent aliens will decide humanity’s fate in eight days, chaos erupts, and three teens strive to make their (potentially) final days count. Cate is charged by her mother, who has schizophrenia, to find the father who abandoned them — and who her mother believes is an alien. Adeem, an amateur hacker, searches for his sister, estranged from their Pakistani American Muslim family after she came out as a lesbian. Crossing paths in Reno, Cate and Adeem head to Roswell, where Jesse, the third teen, is convincing desperate people that he can (for a fee) transmit their pleas for salvation to the aliens, using a machine created by his now-deceased ne’er-do-well father. Rishi’s debut novel skillfully addresses complex contemporary issues on both the global (environmental damage, war, greed) and personal (identity, mental health) scales. It also tackles prejudice and the ways existential fatalism can inordinately affect marginalized people. But even given these themes and the novel’s dark story line, Rishi ends on a hopeful note of possibility, using an adapted quote from Rumi: “Your pain is where the light enters you.”
From the November/December 2019 Horn Book Magazine.