288 pages
Published January 16th 2018 by Soho Teen
This is the story of Maya, an Indian-American-Muslim who dreams of attending school in New York while simultaneously dodging her old fashioned Indian parents and their ideals and the racism she finds so close to home.
I wasn’t expecting this to be as fluffy as it was. I mean, half of it was a a YA romance, I really wasn’t seeing where it was going in the long run. It didn’t fall into the category I would put The Hate U Give or Dear Martin where I felt for the characters on a deeper level than I did Maya. She came off rude and a little childish at times. I mean, her parents were oppressive in a way, but she was lying to them and didn’t give any chance for them to understand until she rolled it all out of them. I know she was scared about telling them about going to NY and liking a white boy and all, but if she wanted to be understood so badly, she had to give others the same courtesy.
The terrorist attack came almost as in afterthought, to push the story into a different category. By that time I was already in romantic fluff mode. It escalated quickly. This is not to downplay what happened. Maya deals with what I am certain tons of people in her situation do especially after such things happen. People want someone to blame Unfortunately they love to blame an entire group of people and that just sucks. It gives a peek into how racism can affect people in more ways than you can imagine.
I hated the ending and how her parents reacted to everything, but part of me felt like it wasn’t entirely their fault which means I wasn’t 100% on board with Maya.
This book wasn’t bad. Was it what I expected? No. Basically it was a love/hate for me.
The World of Celia McMahon 