The Henna Wars
Ratings31
Average rating3.8
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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tws: racism, homophobia, intentional outing, bullying, a girl named chyna
oh... i'm a little disappointed. this is not to say that i didn't really enjoy this book but i didn't love it as much as i thought i would. i liked the murky relationship between nishat and flávia, but i felt like there should've been more. and the book gets so close to packing some punches towards racism, homophobia, and using religion as justification for homophobia, but it didn't quite get there either. a lot of issues wrapped up conveniently... but at least we got out HEA
however at the end of the day it's a wonderful story about a very hardheaded MC who just wants to be herself, despite the world telling her not to. fantastic representation and approaches to very real POC experiences. can't wait to see what adiba jaigirdar has in store next!
Was almost a 2 star but ultimately very readable and the end picked up.
A bit younger than the YA I usually read—it's been a WHILE since I've read one where the central issue is over a school project haha. But it had realistic teenage characters so you gotta keep that in mind if you go for this and feel annoyed at some points.
