Counting Down With You is happiness and feels wrapped up in a book and it's wonderful. Karina struggles with anxiety and living up to her parents' expectations to become a doctor. When her parents take a month-long trip to Bangladesh, Karina feels like she can finally be free of their control - what she doesn't expect is to be caught up in a fake dating romance with the school's bad boy. In the best way possible, Counting Down With You is full of YA contemporary stereotypes that give you all the fuzzy feelings but this time we've got a POC at the forefront.

The anxiety representation is honestly what stood out to me for this story. Karina's struggles with parental expectations and trying to forge her own path as well as being the eldest and facing the innate sexism from her parents echoed thoughts and experiences from my own life. It was both heartbreaking and heartwarming to see her parents express their love for her and how damaging it could be because of cultural and generational differences. For a debut story, Counting Down With You was a wholesome read and it makes me excited to see what the author comes up with next!

On the one hand, I’m definitely the target audience for this book. Seventeen, muslim, and in the middle of an identity crisis? Yes. Karina’s story was wonderfully family oriented, focusing on her rough relationship with her parents, her growing respect for her brother, and the love she has for her grandmother. It never fails to delight me when an mc has a good grandmother/granddaughter relationship because it’s always so wholesome and wonderful. I adored the way she grew into herself; the way she learnt what makes her who she is and how to choose happiness. Her friendships with Nandini and Cora were a bonus; especially because Tashie didn’t include a friendship conflict for them. However, I dislike the whole romance aspect in this novel. Focusing solely on Karina and her personal and familial development would have been absolutely perfect, relatable, and a really really good book. The whole concept of a man, in this case a caucasian one, helping an ‘oppressed’ muslim girl break free is literally the worst trope ever written into anything. I die a little every time i see it happen, and this one caused me pain. Karina couldve easily been supported and encouraged by her grandmother , friends, and brother, but instead she was drawing on courage given to her by Ace, and I was not happy at all. I understand that he had his own familial issues and drew on her for strength, but his issues were just the typical ones that make up the ‘bad boy’ romance character, whereas hers were the issues that make up the oppressed muslim female who needs a white saviour in order to be happy and free. I hate it so much. Where are the Muslim girls living normal lives and being happy and falling in love? Why are we always unhappy and oppressed? Of course it is a reality for many women, but it’s not everyone’s reality, and this character enforces the stereotype. Another thing that bugged me about Ace and Karina was that in the beginning of the book she is uncomfortable with him touching her because she knows that boys are a No-Go. However, as the book progresses their relationship becomes more physical, which is fine if she’s okay with it, but there are scenes in front of her family members when he’s coming too close and she’s blatantly uncomfortable. I think that a lot of aspects of Ace and Karina’s relationship were dragged our way too much, and in the end didn’t have the time to be resolved because of Karina’s other parental conflict.
All in all this was a very long and frustrating read for me, but anyone is welcome to pick this up- we’re all entitled to our own opinions.

This book gave me all the feels! The dynamics between Karina and Ace had my heart swooning. I loved how Ace is there to support her, not save her. Karina has the ability to save herself. The author does a good job describing Karina's anxiety and the ways she tries to deal with it. The poetry scattered throughout was a nice addition and the last few poems had me tearing up. The relationship Karina has with her grandmother is really what made the book for me. Her grandmother is incredibly supportive of her, even when her parents are not. It had me reminiscing on my own relationship with my grandmother. This was a great YA read and I can't wait to read more from this author!

Tender & poignant, this book fleshes out the good girl/bad guy trope with fresh voices and unique perspectives. While my students won’t immediately see themselves in these characters at a surface level, i think there may be even more power in reading about familiar problems from unfamiliar voices. That will lend itself to see just how much they actually *do* have in common with others. At the same time, it increases their appreciation and empathy for others.

This is such a fun, sweet romp! I enjoyed reading this immensely and look forward to Bhuiyan's later releases!

Karina Ahmed seems to be a smart and introverted high schooler whose future is mapped out for her: Get good grades, prepare for college and become a doctor. All the while, placating her overachieving younger brother and doing what her immigrant parents tell her to do - without objection or questioning.

Ace Clyde seems to be the resident bad boy at high school. Rumors circulate about his behavior, moodiness and refusal to engage in high school life. All the while, Ace is trying to evade his overachieving older brother’s supervision and meddling at school.

Tutoring Ace shouldn’t be a problem for Karina. She’s tutored many students prior. However, she’s never been someone’s fake girlfriend before. Grateful that her parents are visiting family in Bangladesh, Karina has T-minus twenty-eight days to figure out how to tutor Ace, be his fake girlfriend and hide this from her family. At the end of 28 days, everything goes back to normal. But what if Karina doesn’t want it to?

Counting Down With You is a sweet romance with complex characters and family dynamics. The conflicts between immigrant parents and their American-born children is addressed well, even if Karina’s parents are stereotypically overbearing and controlling. Ace’s family situation and dynamics fit nicely into the story and add to the complexity of his character. I appreciated how Karina deals with her anxiety throughout the book, trying different coping skills. Definitely a fun and engaging read with serious undertones.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the opportunity to read Counting Down with You.

Okay listen. I don’t even know where to start this review. I’m currently staring at my reading journal and my FOUR pages of notes (yes, you read that right – F O U R) and I still don’t know how to decipher all that because let’s be real, it’s mostly just four pages of me freaking out and my stream of consciousness while I was reading.

With that out of the way, let’s proceed into this review, shall we?

So first up, we’re gonna talk about the Bangladeshi American representation in this. There are so few Bengali diaspora writers in YA in general – there have been two before Tashie, bringing us to a grand total of THREE Bengali published authors in the YA space… so huge kudos to Tashie on this book and making this book so unapologetically Bengali. Food is such a huge part of Bengali culture and Tashie threw in every Bengali dish that I grew up eating in this book – my stomach was GRUMBLING reading this. Read with an empty stomach at your own peril.

CDWY is formulaic in its romance: responsible girl and bad boy trope? Check. Bad boy who is actually a cinnamon roll? Check. Friends to lovers? Check. Tutoring sessions? Check. FAKE DATING? CHECK, CHECK AND CHECK.

The way CDWY executes these formulas though is brilliant. Karina has anxiety and the anxiety rep in this is incredible, especially in the coping mechanisms. How Karina, throughout the course of the book, learns to fight family expectations for what she wants to pursue in her life. She finds strength and really – what more could you want out of a YA?

Let’s get to the fluff now. Ace adores Karina (the bad boy literally buys her multiple books a week to fake date her…. Like literally what more do you want in a partner?). The romance will have you squealing and laughing and crying within chapters of each other. The sweetness factor? EXTREMELY SACCHARINE. And Karina’s friends are chaotic; I adore them. When reading dialogue between them, you feel like you yourself are amongst them and joking right along with them. I would be totally remiss if I didn’t mention Dadu. Karina’s grandmother is one of the most supportive, badass grandmas in YA. This was the book my high school self needed, but I'm so glad it's out in the world now.

I also got an e-ARC as I was part of the Turn the Pages Bookstagram tour for CDWY’s publication! I also filmed a VERY SPOILERY reading vlog that you can view here: https://youtu.be/hjH6B181TNc

So yeah. Read this book if you want to feel things. And stan Dadu.

Lots of ups and downs with this one. There were many moments where I caught myself laughing out loud. and others where I had to put the book down for a minute to process. I really enjoyed the main characters. This is a book that I would definitely recommend to others. The author weaves together such an intricate and realistic story, handling tough issues with such care.

I didn’t expect this book to hit so close to home. After reading Tashie Bhuiyan’s Counting Down With You, I feel like I have finally read a book with good South Asian representation in a contemporary setting. To be precise, I am praising the rep as it did not take over the character’s identity and her surrounding. Plus the MC Karina, suffers from anxiety which was another reason why I could relate to her like 100%. The multiple names, the unbarring connection and responsibility towards your family, its was all so hard to read (only because it was so real).


Still I was so engrossed, I finish the book in one day. As soon as I crossed the first act, there was no stopping me. Since there is so much to say about this book I will try not to spoil it and only share the top five things that I loved the most. Karina‘s poetry. God it was like reading music or a painting. Friendship goals, Karina’s relationship with her friends is so good and so pure. Their understanding and support for each other was so beautiful, even when they didn’t understand each other. The helplessness they felt was so real.


Samir-Karina‘s relationship. If only everyone had such a perfect sibling. Spoilers!! but the scene where Karina finally talks to Samir brought me to tears at 4 in the morning. While I was trying to hid the fact that I was still awake reading. I did get a earful for it next morning. The romance. Believe me so much of the romance it was giving me the creeps because of how real it was. The constant fear of your parents finding out, the hiding, the new new prem and the power that came with tiny bit of recognition. All of it was too much too handle (Did I just quote a realty show title!!). I had to stop a couple of times just to process all the feels.

T- the anxiety it brought me as the number went down didn’t stop even after it turned to T plus. But it was one of the best parts of the books. It constantly kept me where I was and what to expect. I was always looking for hints and clues in the book but Tashie‘s writing managed to surprise me a few times. I am glad to have gotten the chance to read Counting Down With You.

Bonus: It was most fun realising where the title comes from. ❤ ❤

I made the mistake of starting read this book at bedtime and the next thing I knew I’d finished the book and it was the next day. While I don’t share the same cultural background, Karina’s struggles with anxiety and her family reminded me so much of my own teen years. This book is an emotional rollercoaster as Karina and Ace each learn to stand up for their own happiness.

While Karina will miss her parents while they’re gone for a month in Bangladesh, she’s also relieved to have a temporary escape from them, and to spend some time with her Dadu, her grandmother. Things start going sideways when her English teacher asks her to tutor Ace, the school’s bad boy. Though Karina doubts he’ll even show up, she agrees to avoid disappointing the teacher, something that would trigger her anxiety, especially as English is the subject Karina feels most drawn to, even though she’s aiming for a pre-med program at her parents’ direction. As Karina gets to know Ace, though, she realizes there’s more to him than the image he presents – and maybe that’s true for Karina as well.

This book is extremely character driven, and all from Karina’s first-person POV. As the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, she’s aware of how much they’ve worked to provide for her and her brother and doesn’t want to appear ungrateful, but sometimes she feels that it’s all for their benefit rather than hers. Even though on some level she resents the pressure and restrictions placed on her by her parents, she still loves them, which makes challenging them, even on small things, extremely hard. Probably because of that, Karina’s only recently come to understand that she has anxiety. She spends lots of late nights researching coping techniques, from journalling her thoughts to aromatherapy candles. One of the things that seem to work best for her is to repeatedly counting back from 10, as is prayer. I liked that while she is Muslim and it’s a part of her identity, it’s not one of the conflicts in the book. She’s clear to separate her religion from the Bangladeshi traditions that she views as too restrictive and controlling.

“You should do something fun,” Ace says, poking me with the end of his plastic spoon. “Who knows when you’ll get another chance.”
“Ace, let’s not do this,” I say, suddenly tired. There are certain things I will never be able to do, and I’m not in the mood to explain our cultural differences to him. “This isn’t… Let’s get back to studying.”
Ace stares at me for a long beat of silence. “I didn’t mean to overstep,” he says quietly. “Teach away, Ahmed.”
My lips curve upward, and the tension in him eases, a smile flitting past his own lips.


Karina and Ace are opposite sides of the same coin. While Karina feels she has to earn her parents’ affection by being the perfect Bangladeshi daughter, Ace feels the only way to get it from his is to act out. With a dad who works constantly and a supposedly perfect older brother, being the black sheep is the way for him to stand out, even if it’s not really the person he is. Rather than the awful person Karina expects, Ace is actually nice, and while he’s initially dismissive of the study aids Karina’s put together, her obvious love for the subject eventually piques his interest. One of the things I really liked about him is that Ace respects her boundaries. Sure, he can never understand what it’s like for her, but when she tells him not to do something, he doesn’t do it again. For Karina, that makes him someone who it’s almost relaxing to be around. As the tutoring goes on and their relationship progresses, there’s a lot of angst over what would happen if her parents found out, but it’s overall a supportive, wonderful thing for both of them.

“Ace is hot and he’s offering to buy her books. That’s like…perfect for Karina.”
“Yeah, but in case you happened to forget, Karina’s parents are batshit,” Nandini says, “and if they find out about this, it doesn’t matter how hot Ace is, because they’re going to kill her.”
“Kill me first,” I beg hopelessly. “At least it’ll be quick.”
“See? This is why she should’ve told Ace to go fuck himself,” Nandini says, running a soothing hand down my back.


I loved Karina’s group of friends. I loved how they gently encouraged her to fight for her own happiness, and gave her space when she needed it. I also liked how her relationship with her brother Samir was handled. From her perspective, her parents act like he’s the perfect child, naturally interested in the sciences. He’s younger than her and completely oblivious to the differences in how their parents treat them, but once Karina points it out, he starts paying attention and then quietly supports her. I especially loved her Dadu. If Karina’s parents represent everything restrictive about Bangladeshi culture, Dadu is everything good. She’s supportive, gently asking questions about Karina’s interests when her parents ignore her in favor of her younger brother, and she truly listens. While she, too, worries about her relationship with Ace, rather than going full nuke and confining Karina to the house, she gently warns her about it and then trusts Karina.

There are a lot of things left hanging at the end of the book. Usually this would be frustrating for me, but I thought it actually fit with the rest of the book. Karina’s push for happiness is a work in progress, but she’s done it once and she can do it again. After all, she’s only sixteen and she has her whole life ahead of her – a life chosen by her, and not her parents.

Overall, I loved this book and can’t wait to see what the author writes next. And as a final note, since I’m white and Christian, I also wanted to link to a Muslimah’s notes on how Islam plays a role in the book.

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

CDWY review

Awww, this was such a cute book. Ummm why is Karina literally a great representation of anxiety…because that’s what it’s really like to have anxiety. Anxiety is a overwhelming feeling and can come out anytime. Karina used her coping skills to help her stay calm and okay, and that’s really great…especially since she had to help herself. Which is super brave of her.

I know this book wasn’t all about Karina and her anxiety, but it was about her not letting her anxiety win and facing her fears. I have no idea what it’s like to have parents with super strict rules, so I can’t tell you I relate. But I can tell you, that I really felt Karina’s pain and knew she was scared of what things she did in life, which is no way to live.

Ace was Karina’s anchor, he helped her face those fears. Just like Karina was Ace’s lionheart showing him that it’s going to be okay. I adored this book so much and was so happy I had the chance to read it. There is so many things to say about this book. I loved that this book ended in a poem, and not just a poem…one that incorporated Karinas coping skill of counting down. I adored this book so much, more than I have with another book for a little while.

….I would like to say I did get a copy of this from netgalley for an honest review from me…

I loved this book. It was funny and sweet at the same time. The characters were believable and diverse. It really shows how hard it can be for people of different backgrounds and how much pressure our families can put on us.

As a YA romance book, I liked this- but it has come to my attention that the Muslim rep is not great. So caveat emptor.

Written in first-person POV with vibrant description and storytelling, Counting Down with You is a delightful, sweet, humorous, relatable, and entertaining fake dating, YA romance featuring a diverse, likable cast of characters, who could be you or your friends, finding the strength to follow and live their own dreams for themselves instead of those of their parents. Over twenty-eight days, a Bangladeshi teenager, Karina Ahmed, who always follows the rules, doing exactly what is expected of her by her parents, gets the opportunity to experience what life might be like if she had the chance to make her own choices, live her own life, and plan the future she secretly dreams about without her parents around when they travel to Bangladesh. And it all starts with tutoring her school’s gorgeous bad boy, Ace Clyde, who lies and says that she is his girlfriend. Cue Fake Dating for the Win!

Multilayered main and secondary characters who feel like people you know – your friends, and yourself – that are relatable and likeable, even when they make mistakes or poor choices, draw you into the novel from the first word, making you care deeply about them, their lives, and their stories. From an outside view, Karina is the perfect Bangladeshi teenage girl. She is reserved, respectful, smart, and obedient. She keeps her head down, stays out of trouble, and works hard to succeed at STEM courses and activities so that she can go to medical school and become a doctor as expected by her parents. Inside she is miserable, struggling to keep moving, so much so that she experiences anxiety. She’s a creative girl who loves English, reading, and writing, and she excels in them, which is the very opposite of STEM. It would be one thing if she were only forced into a career she didn’t choose, but she also has an extreme lack of personal freedom as all her time and her comings and goings are controlled and limited by her parents.

Feeling as though you owe your parents for their sacrifices, even if you can’t live the life you want in exchange is a familiar feeling for many second generation BIPOC and immigrants. I initially explored pre-med because it was a practical career choice, and coming from a family of teachers, I was told that I could not become a teacher. I was also dissuaded from social work, which was also something I had expressed an interest in. But it was too impractical. Only years later did I pursue a career in creative arts and writing. Karina’s story and experience rings true, as well as how burdensome the pressure to fulfill your parents’ and family’s dreams and meet their expectations is, and how it feels to let them down, feeling as though they’re disappointed – like what you do is never enough. However, Bhuiyan takes it a step further, exploring the differences in expectation and treatment that parents have for their sons and daughters. The exploration of Karina’s relationship with her brother is well done and adds another layer to the story.

Ace is so much more than just the school’s hot bad boy, as Karina learns while first reluctantly tutoring him and then after being sweet talked into fake dating him in exchange for him buying her books – her weakness. He’s a sweet, creative, kind, generous, and smart rebel who’s also experiencing family drama concerning his life choices and future. They are two sides of a coin with opposite experiences that give them different perspectives on life, dreams, and the future. But this helps them to balance each other out and offers them a person who can listen and offer a different viewpoint. The interactions between Ace and Karina are sweet, funny, poignant, and beautiful and hard not to love. They are one of my favorite things about the novel.

I love the inside look into Karina’s culture and her familial relationships, and how her culture informs those relationships and how the family interacts. Karina’s grandmother is staying with her and her brother while their parents are gone. The relationship between Karina and her grandmother is so different from the one with her parents. Surprisingly, she is a source of comfort and support for Karina in the storm her life becomes. Karina’s friends are amazing and help to contribute to the development of her character and the story in a natural, genuine way.

Through the lens of a forbidden interracial/cross cultural romance and an insider view of Bangladeshi culture, Counting Down With You depicts a sweet, humorous, romantic, heartfelt, evocative, and authentic exploration of the weight of generational expectations on brown girls to succeed by putting their own needs, desires, dreams, and lives aside to satisfy their parents. Readers who love fake dating, YA romance, will not be able to resist reading the novel to find out how Karina overcomes her dilemma between living her own life or living the life her parents planned for her. It is a must-read I cannot recommend highly enough.

South Asian own voices, fake-dating YA romance with anxiety rep, you say? Sign me the heck up. I’ve been anticipating Counting Down With You for some time purely on that basis, but I became more and more apprehensive the nearer we got to release having heard some negative reviews on the Bangladeshi and Muslim representation (I’ll touch on that later). However, I really enjoyed this book and devoured it pretty quickly considering how slumpy I’ve been for the last few months.

"You deserve to be happy.
But what if what would make me happy is to live my life the way I want without disappointing my parents?"

Counting Down With You follows Karina as her conservative parents go away for a month and she is asked to tutor a boy in her English class. In her parents’ absence, Karina begins taking more liberties with what they would usually allow and finds herself happier thanks to the loosening of the tight leash they have on her life.

The anxiety rep I needed as a 16 year-old
Caffeine Book Tours prides itself off running tours with own voices reviewers and so here’s my two cents on something I can speak about from personal experience. I related so hard to so much of what Karina goes through with regards to her anxiety to the point where I was seeing 16-year-old me, pre-anxiety diagnosis, and thinking, “how tf did I not realise?!”

Karina has undiagnosed anxiety — she doesn’t want to see a doctor because she is scared of her parents finding out, but she is overwhelmed with her desire to make everyone happy and not be a disappointment. She spends a lot of the book searching for ways to help combat her panic attacks and the never ending fear and worry she has to deal with as a result of the pressure from her family.

“Sorry,” I choke out.
“No,” Ace says, his thumbs swiping underneath my eyes again. “Don’t ever apologise to me for this.”

One of the most prominent parts of this for me is the constant apologising. If she could, Karina would apologise for just existing and this is something that, no matter how much therapy I have had, I can’t stop doing. Ace is the first person who notices her anxiety for what it is and tries to help, part of that comes in the form of telling her she doesn’t have to apologise. This is one of the first things my partner started doing for me and to this day has to remind me that I owe him no apologies, so this was really soft.

I felt the anxiety rep in this book was really important and something I really related to. I’d like to see it more, especially in YA, as I feel like so many teenagers especially suffer from high-functioning anxiety. Seeing this journey of Karina coming to terms with the situation and finding her own solutions is really great, but obviously it is important to note that if struggling with your mental health, you should see your GP and contact local mental health services.

But is this a white boy saviour complex book?
No. Well, yes and no. It’s complicated.

Counting Down With You is advertised as a contemporary rather than a romance, but I’m not so sure if that’s accurate because the relationship is so central to Karina’s struggles with her family, her mental health and her future. In terms of the timeline of the story, it does seem very much like the Brown girl lives a tough life under her parents’ expectations and then the white boy comes along and shows her how bad things were and saves her from this terrible life. I concede that it can be read this way.

However, I think Karina’s growth is much more to do with her own realisations which she was very much already aware of before Ace was on the scene. Sure, he’s a catalyst for the way things go down, but he doesn’t save her; Karina saves herself.

"Something infinitely tender overlaps with something harsher. In this song, I hear everything he thinks of me. I’m a dichotomy between quiet and bold, between soft and brave."

Karina knows from the start that her situation is not optimal, she says in the first chapter that she is glad to see her parents leave for a month. She needs space and she needs a chance to work out how to deal with the pressure of her home life. I believe that if Ace wasn’t involved, Karina and Dadu still would have come to the same conclusion and solution — things were simply sped up because hanging out with Ace was so different to what she was used to.

I adored Karina and Ace’s relationship, though on occasion the cliches came on a little strong. Ace’s difficult home life also gave interesting contrast to Karina’s situation which balanced out nicely. I liked the way when Ace pushed her boundaries, he would instantly apologise upon realising and ensure not to cross them again. The healthy friendship, let alone relationship, they built was really good to see.

So what’s the problem with the Bangladeshi and Muslim representation?
In my reading experience of Counting Down With You, I did not see any glaring red flags, despite having already been made aware that there were issues. I have seen that the author has made some changes since the first negative reviews went out and I may have read a newer draft as I read an eARC, but I don’t know that for certain.

"I’m not a bad person for wanting. But I feel like I am."

Personally, I saw the reasons for Karina’s parents’ high expectations and poor treatment of her as something that was not necessarily religion or heritage-driven but something that may have been born from some of the rules and expectations of these cultures but taken by them personally to the nth degree on their own back. However, I’m a white atheist who lives in the UK, so I can’t speak on the representation with any authority.

Representation and content warnings
Rep: Bangladeshi-American, Muslim MC with anxiety; Black, Indian, and Chinese side characters; queer side characters (bi and sapphic)

Content warnings: On-page anxiety and panic attacks; in-depth discussions of anxiety; emotional and psychological parental abuse; discussion of historic event where a child is kicked out for being LGBTQIAP+. This list is not conclusive. Please use caution if you think you may be affected by any of these things.

TL;DR: A diverse own voices YA romance to make you swoon, Counting Down With You has the representation that all teens with anxiety deserve to see.

i just did not like the love interest, even though I wanted to keep reading Karina's story. But the basic white boy, he was just too many tropes all wrapped up together for me to fall for the romance
but I'm excited for Tashie Bhuiyan's future books because she is such a talented writer!

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by publisher and Caffeine Book Tours as part of the blog tour in exchange for an honest review. I’d like to thank Shealea @ShutUpShealea and Inkyard Press for this opportunity!

Personally whenever I write, contemporary is a genre I tend to steer away from because it brings out a lot of personal trauma, and writing about that is really really really hard. Can one truly capture the intricacies of culture, love, personal struggle, religion and ambition all in one book well?

While I cannot speak from the perspective of a Bangladeshi-Muslim, I can speak as someone who shares experiences with Karina. Religion, one’s connect to their God/Gods, their path to their spirituality, I’ve always thought is a very personal journey. Something that one must explore on their own and come to understand the rules and traditions of their culture and religion with their own eyes. I still question my mother or my father on some of the traditions they follow and I think everyone deserves that space and respect in their paths to nurture their own growth. I found this part of the book resonating with me heavily, where everyone must seek an understanding of their religion/God(s) on their own and I can’t imagine anyone should direct that.

The emotional struggle, anxiety, familial pressures and Karina’s demons that she battles and battles were difficult and heavy and hits you hard. I’ve not had all of Karina’s struggles in my life, but I remember the struggles I did have and the stumbles and falls I’d taken to learn to stand on my own… not unlike Karina. There are moments of borderline toxicity in some relationships but I presume that was written to encapsulate the struggle of a girl trying to reveal herself to those around her and not being seen again and again. There’s also wonderfully immediate acceptance in some relationships and slow comprehension in others, but no matter which form understanding came in in the book, it was all beautiful and heartwarming to watch happen.

I had many breakdowns during the book and while some of them was in pain, some of them was also in overwhelm during the moments of support and unconditional love Karina receives. I recently heard someone have a take on love and how you needn’t have to love yourself for someone to love you or you to love someone. That most people who are struggling through trauma can’t love themselves just yet but can very much love another. It’s totally okay to love someone while learning to love yourself. I think this book captures this phrase well.

The love interest was very respectful, kind, understanding of boundaries and my god listened and learned from his mistakes. I think there were many moments with Ace in the scene and how Karina would feel by the simple understanding and loving acceptance she receives from him that really had me needing a moment of crying before I could get back to the book. THE FRIENDS. There was a nice balance of personalities the three girls (including Karina here) brought to their three-person-tent. There’s always one person who’s empathetic and one person who’s a gentle encourager-for-more whenever one of them is struggling. They’re supportive and kind without being intrusive and fighting Karina’s battles for her; because in the end they always remember that they take her strength away and not empower her when they do something for her. So they wait with faith and love.

The only thing I think I’m still trying to figure out is how I feel about the wrapping up of the plot. Most of me understands why certain aspects of it was left out, while some part of me is still trying to make sense of it. But in the end, baby steps and constant movement forward is the way to go.

Four and a half stars stars. Despite the heavy topic, there’s a lot of light, laughter, strength, friendship, love and poetry to fall in love with. Happy reading and stay safe!

I might have aged out of young adult contemporary. Duly noted! Anyway, it's perfectly charming and by the numbers, certainly a descendant of To All the Boys I've Loved Before, with a similar main couple. I can't comment on the authenticity of any of the representation as I'm not South Asian, nor Muslim, but I would like to acknowledge that I've read the criticisms.

Underwhelmed by this one. On one hand, it was fast and easily digestible read. On the other hand, I actually caught myself rolling my eyes several times while reading because of the over the top cheese factor.

Let it be known that I hate writing poems and songs in books. No matter what book I find it in, I never like it, it never sounds good, and I feel like I'm being forcefed the mantra of "they're so deep." Quite a common thing in YA contemporaries for some reason.

Surprisingly, the poem-writing is not the only thing I rolled my eyes at. The romance between Karina and Ace quickly went from cute to cringe as he "noticed a spark" in her, called her "baby" which she found so intimate and endearing, and referred to her as "lionheart" because she's just so brave.

Sigh.

I think my overall problem with this is that it felt like it tried really hard to be To All the Boys I've Loved Before and it really fell short due to lack of character work and there was also not enough of a reason to start fake dating.

I did find the Bangladeshi family dynamic interesting to read about and I wish those relationships had been hashed out more. The brother-sister bond between Karina and Samir was sweet and I especially liked the little detail of him starting to do his homework in her room just to make sure she was okay. More little things like that would have been wonderful. I clearly can't speak for the rep itself, but it seems that's what some own voices reviewers on here have a problem with because of the implied negativity toward her culture and all I can say to that is: yes, I read that too.

Oh! Also - no closure on her relationship with Ace as far as what her family might think? Wasn't that a main component of the whole story? Really confusing that wasn't wrapped up.

Huh. This turned out to be a long review for a 2 star book.

The base concept here is a familiar one - dealing with the pressure to conform to the expectations of immigrant parents. The pressure to achieve in the sciences and to conform to certain types of dress and behavior. That is the heart of this novel. As we expect our high strung heroine is paired up with the underachieving rebel. Both come to realize that their assumptions about each other are inaccurate. Each has familiar issues they are dealing with. While the plot is predictable the characters have some depth and the author is attempting to address more complex issues, which makes it admirable.