This YA magical, romance story from bestselling author Aisha Saeed was such a unique book. The fantasy elements were super interesting and the complex story has many interesting layers and themes including immigration, racism, and hatred.

The magical town of Moonlight Bay is stripped of its magic after an unexpected tragedy. Yas and Raf come from two different sides of town. Raf i a Golub, a refugee that works in the local diner but dreams of going to school for architecture. Yas is a local, who uses shells from the waters to help her mother create healing necklaces which have been hard to come by since Moonlight Bay began struggling. Despite their differences, they fall for one another.

I thought this was an okay story, nothing special in my opinion. I felt that the world building was a bit lacking, and I wanted more background on the magic of Moonlight Bay. I thought the leaf tattoos on the Golub's wrists were really intriguing, but again, I wanted to know more. I do think the imagery in this book was exceptional though! I would love to visit Moonlight Bay with its lavender sea. Childhood friends to lovers was at play, and it was definitely a slow burn romance, which I enjoyed. I did think that the pacing was too slow for my liking though. This novel has bigger conversations about grief, loss, refugees and the treatment of immigrants, which I think was well done.

If you are looking for a cozy Young Adult read, check out this book. With beautiful prose, Forty Words for Love is an immersive read about two best friends: Raf and Yas. They live in Moonlight Bay. Raf is originally from Golub and arrived as a young child when his homeland became inhabitable. There are elements of magical realism in the story but through the characters and the plot, bigger themes of acceptance, community, harmony, friendship and love are addressed.

Raf and Yas have had feelings for each other for a long time but Raf has been told all his life that he cannot be with someone from another culture. He is from Golub and if he falls in love with an outsider, he will lose his place in the community. He would never be able to return to his home. Meantime, Yas has her own struggles. Her mom creates necklaces from seashells that have healing powers. But the seas are changing and the shells are becoming rarer and harder to find. Yas is supposed to take over from her mom one day but instead she feels the urge to go explore the world and become her own person.

I loved the way art and craft are interwoven into Forty Words for Love. There are preparations for a festival and a push to lift the spirits of the people in the community, though not everyone can be happy with how things are done and that adds a bit of tension to the storytelling. The town and its people were well done and the challenges of moving there from another place were portrayed from both sides. The prose was immersive and the pace of the story felt cozy, though a bit on the long side. There are certain things about the town that didn’t add up for me. But overall, I liked the book.

Many thanks to Colored Pages Tour, the author and publisher for the free book for an honest review.

A beautiful compelling love story. Aisha Saeed's writing is lyrical and emotional and I know young teens will find a lot to relate to within this story.

Moonlight Bay, once a magical haven, loses its charm after a tragic incident, turning its vibrant waters gray and pitting its forest against the townsfolk. Yasmine and Rafay, childhood friends from different backgrounds, grapple with their changing world. The novel, 'Forty Words for Love,' explores their evolving friendship amid political tensions and a hint of forbidden romance. While it captivates with fantastical elements, it falls short in depth and pacing, leaving some mysteries unexplored, making it an intriguing but imperfect read for young audiences.

This genre blending teen novel combines a fantastical world with all-too-real political problems. Magical realism, romance, and fantasy combine to make this genre blending novel a page turner. As the town of Moonlight Bay unravels, Yasmine and Rafay discover that there is more to their friendship. This story line gives off a little bit of star-crossed lovers vibes because Yas is from the town and Raf is an immigrant from Willow Forest. There’s discussion about what this means and how far the people will go to protect the Willow Forest when the potential for town revitalization is on the line. The premise of the story is great and the cover grabbed my attention. However, I wanted more detail about some things because I couldn’t completely see this fantastical world that Saeed created. The Golub, described more by its function than by its appearance, remains a mystery to me along with other key components of the story. I enjoyed the slow-burn romance between Yas and Raf and I liked the underlying political tones. Both Yas and Raf are young adults preparing for college so it is a little unclear who the target audience is. Fantasy readers of this age usually enjoy more fleshed out stories with completely described magical worlds. Still, I would recommend this book for purchase by school and public libraries serving middle school and high school readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kokila for the complimentary digital copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions shared are my own. This book is available on August 22,2023.

This was such a beautiful and thoughtful story. I enjoyed it so much, but the pacing was definitely not my best friend - i found it a bit too slow at parts, and somehow it took from the reading experience and how well I could connect with the characters!

Thank you Penguin Teen for the ARC!

I would love to interview Aisha for my podcast, Raise Your Words. So far some of the authors I have had are: Aamna Qureshi, Iman Hariri-Kia, Annika Sharma, Priyanka Taslim, Ausma Zehanat Khan, and many others! I recently had Ally Carter on my podcast and that episode will air next month. Forty Words for Love is a really heartbreaking contemporary romance.

Forty Words for Love kind of let me down a bit. Bits and pieces were enjoyable but they overall weren't enough to keep me hooked on the story.

3.5 stars Thank you Penguin for this ARC
Interesting premise, and I enjoy most of the story but slow pacing and a lack of development makes it a hard book to love.
I was so intrigued by the premise and so excited to read it, but the story is so different from the blurb and how it is being marketed. That's not to say I hated it, but if you expect a pizza and you get a hamburger it isn't necessarily bad, but still a disappointment.
What I did like
The premise is interesting, and magic to symbolize immigration and grief is a cool concept. I also like how hate is depicted, as well as racism. I did manage to make it through the story, and I did enjoy some of the writing and fantasy aspects. Everything surrounding grief and moving were my most enjoyable moments in the story.
Everything else
It just felt like most of the book I was waiting for something to happen. And then it feels like nothing really develops or changes. There are only a few scant occurences of magic happening on page, and honestly for a fantasy book there really isn't any fantasy. The fantasy element of the tree and leaf could have easily been taken out, and nothing major would have changed about the story. (Yes some stuff would change, but hugely it is not strong enough to warrant it) I know the leaves and tree are supposed to symbolize immigrants, and the urge to protect your children from the world at large and keep them a part of the community. The book would have benefited more from losing the magical aspects and instead just focusing more on those pieces. It almost felt like the fantasy element was an afterthought.
The characters are difficult to become attached to, there isn't much to any of them and none of them go through a lot of growth.
There really isn't any chemistry in any relationship. Yasmine and Rafay never feel like they have feelings for eachother, it honestly just feels like a friendship for the whole book. I thought it was going to have more romance, or at least an exploration of their relationship building and their feelings. The title itself does feel like the opposite of everything that actually ends up happening.
I do feel like this is more of a book about grief, and the importance of dealing with your feelings before moving forward. If there was more of a focus on those aspects it would have been a stronger overall read.
One of the biggest issues for me is the lack of overall world-building and plot holes. There is something to be said for the reader still having questions, but when there is no explanation or reasoning for anything it really breaks the immersion.
I have mixed feelings about this one, but if the premise interests you please check out a few reviews and see what you think! I might not love it, but I know a lot of other people have.

Thank you for the ARC Penguin Teen, Kokila, and TLCBook Tours in exchange for an honest review.

This YA novel feels more in the line of literary fiction. It is truly a genre bending novel. It has a romance that is a forbidden childhood friends to lovers. There is magical realism, mystery, and it talks about a host of other important topics like grief, love, and loss, and the treatment of immigrants or people who are considered "outsiders."

This story centers around two teens, Raf who is a refugee who dreams of going to school but has to push his own dreams aside to help out his family and raise his younger siblings and Yasmine who is local to this little town who's family has been struggling in the wake of a major employer leaving the town.

The writing is so very stunning. It is quite lyrical and beautifully descriptive. I thought that the slow burn romance of this forbidden friendship was lovely to read. Really, the lush imagery and these characters was the highlight of my reading experience.

There were times that my suspension of disbelief was challenged in this novel and I think it mostly had to do with the dream-like quality that Saeed tried to imbue. Because of the way that it is written as a genre-bending novel, I was less grounded in the world building or the tidbits of the mystery that were sprinkled throughout the entire book. Nonetheless, it was still quite captivating.

If you are drawn to complex storytelling by BIPOC authors featuring BIPOC characters, this might be the book for you. I think this might be a phenomenal book club recommendation because in spite of how short it is, it has a lot to say.. While I don't think this book might be everyone's favorite because of the style of storytelling, people who enjoy lift and those who enjoy mulling over the things that they read should pick this book up.

When I saw this cover I was instantly in love and I knew I needed to read this book. When I read the description I was completely intrigued. I love when the magical and the real blend together and I thought this book had such huge potential. I found the world building to be strange but it was beautiful and this small town was a place I could imagine visiting. I found the story to be a painfully slow burn and I didn’t love how slow the story was. I will say the love story was sweet and I was definitely rooting for Yas and Raf. I enjoyed the art and imagery in the book. I did like that book tackles some tough issues about how one group can discriminate against another group by using the mythical Golub people. When the Golub’s land became unloveable they came through a special tree to the regular world we live in and were welcomed even if it was cautious. They are marked by a leaf tattoo on their wrist but they can lose their tattoo if they stray too far for too long or break other rules of their people. After tragedy strikes the two groups have conflict and the town is dying. What will the townspeople give up. To save their town?

This book was bursting with metaphor and themes and everything that make English Lit students happy. I loved the idea of a pink and lavender sea and enjoyed thinking about it. And the absence of it made a really powerful metaphor for grief, especially after the tragedy that happens in the first chapter of the book. This book is about the town grieving from a tragic event. It was beautifully constructed to show that.

The only problem was that because there's so much grief and emotion in the town, it made the first half of the book really depressing to read. It wasn't hard to get into, but it was just a lot of very hopeless sentiment. It did get better though in the second half of the book when there was more hope to be had.

The ending was beautiful as well. It made me gasp at points and ended in exactly the right way. I thought I knew how it would end from about a quarter of the way into the book, but I was so wrong. It really left an impression on me.

Forty Words for Love Review

Content warning:
- Racism.
- Death of a child.
- Displacement.
- Burns and injuries.

Brief Review

Forty Words for Love by Aisha Saeed tells the story of Raf and Yas, two teens growing up in a town called Moonlight Bay. Moonlight Bay is home to a magical tree that’s a portal to Golub, Raf’s homeland. Golub is currently going through an environmental crisis, causing its inhabitants to flee. Raf is part of a community of refugees living in Moonlight Bay, and although the members of the town once welcomed them, the Golub are currently the targets of hate speech. We follow the two teens as they navigate the politics of the town, their own desires and dreams, and how hate from others can permanently affect a society’s well-being.

I thought there was so much potential here, but for me, there were just too many unanswered questions and unfinished plot lines. I loved the characters but felt unsatisfied with the ending, so I gave Forty Words for Love a three-star rating.

Summary

In Forty Words for Love, we have Moonlight Bay, a seaside town home to a giant magical tree and healing waters. A year before the story starts, the sea by Moonlight Bay loses its signature pink and purple look and has turned gray. Residents blame the Golub, refugees who have come through the magical tree in the center of the village.

Raf is one of these refugees, having come over when he was a kid. His uncle is the de-facto leader of the Golub, and was one of the first through the tree initially. Each Golub has a leaf on their wrist that will allow them to return home when it’s safe to do so, and the uncle tested out the limits of the leaf, discovering that too much time spent away from the tree would cause it to disappear.

This is troubling for Raf, who wants to go to college and become an architect. He struggles with this dream and his responsibilities at home, to help his mother with his little brothers and run the diner, which his family uses as their primary source of income.

Yas is Raf’s best friend, and she’s struggling with a similar conflict. She comes from a family of charm-makers, who collects shells from the healing sea and shape them into necklaces people can wear to soothe an anxious heart. Though she once believed in the power of the necklaces, she’s starting to think it’s just snake oil, and is thinking of moving away from her newly dysfunctional family.
One year before the story starts, Raf was preparing to tell Yas he had feelings for her, and when he did, the leaf on his wrist burned, the sea turned gray, and a little boy died. His uncle found him shortly after this and told him that his leaf was warning him because he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with anyone who wasn’t Golub.

A year later, when the story actually starts, an ultra-rich family has moved in next door to Yas, and the mayor wants to do anything he can to get them to stay and re-invigorate the town. Yas is tasked with getting to know the teen son, Warren, who’s mostly bored by the town. She gives him a tour, and he asks to see the Golub tree.

Raf agrees that it’s okay, and Warren visits the little Golub village, meeting on the most recent additions to the community, Nara. Her brother, Kot, has been missing, believed to have gone back through the Golub tree, and she’s distraught at the thought that he would return to the land they just narrowly managed to leave.

Warren and Nara start to get closer, Raf and Yas take a trip to see the college Raf wants to go to, and the town prepares, at the last second, to hold their annual festival to entice the rich family to stay.

When Raf and Yas go to visit the college he wants to attend, they lose track of time and are outside the perimeter for like eight hours, but Raf discovers that his leaf is intact and there was actually no problem at all.

He returns to confront his uncle with this, and his uncle tries to say at first that it’s just a fluke, then Nara’s missing brother returns and reveals the uncle sent him away when he started saying some of the rules didn’t make sense. It turns out the uncle has been lying to everyone about the leaves and how they work, including when he told Raf his leaf would keep him from being with Yas.

There’s no time to dwell on this reveal, however, because Warren and Nara tell everyone that Warren’s parents are planning to make an offer for the town, as long as they get to have the Golub tree as part of the deal. They plan to but the tree down to harvest it for its restorative properties, which would keep any further refugees from being able to escape the unlivable conditions.

The racists in the town try to force a vote at midnight, and while it’s happening, a toddler gets loose an is running toward the water. Raf and Yas spot this and go to stop it, saving the toddler. Everyone comes out to the water to find the broken shells in the sea lighting up and creating a gold color in the sea.

They’re able to rejuvenate the tourism for the town by doing night tours and re-marketing the town with the new bioluminescent shells. The Golub tree is saved and Raf and Yas are able to confess their love for one another.

I always like to start with what I like first. I really liked the premise of this book, and thought the conflict between the Golub and the townspeople was compelling. Additinally, I enjoyed the scenary and descriptions, and I think the visuals of Moonlight bay are complementary to the story. I thought the relationship between Raf and Yas was cute, and that the various conflicts were realistic and natural within the story.

Where I think things start to deteriorate is in the story’s lack of resolution. There are so many questions I still had at the end of the story that it felt nothing had really been resolved. How does the leaf actually work, and how did they get them? Why did the sea lose its color so suddenly? What’s wrong with the tree and Golub in general? Why did Yas see a brief little patch of pink in the sea? Nobody really went outside for an entire year to see the bioluminescent shells? With so many conflicts set up at the beginning of the book, I would have liked to see a few of them answered.

It also felt like the conflict with the Uncle was largely ignored. What he did—the mountain of lies, controlling everyone, and kidnapping Kot felt like it deserved a little more acknowledgement.

The title of this book comes from how Yas is learning to speak Golub, and how Raf teaches her little words here and there. At the end, when she’s confessing her love, she says “what’s the word for love?” to which he replies, “there are forty words for love.”
I liked this, but I think I might have liked it more if Yas’s learning Golub was a little more solid. She mostly just asks about single words, and never seems to be able to speak a full sentence. If this is something they’ve been doing for so long, it would have been cool to see this come in as a secret way to communicate or something.

Overall, I thought this was worth reading but wish it had a little stronger execution. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for access to an advance reader copy.

this was a let down for me!
I enjoyed it at parts - but i just feel like as a whole the book fell flat.
the cover is what caught my eye, and i was expecting something emotional but i didn’t really get that.
the exposition felt clunky at times, and the plot dragged at times.
i can see why other people would enjoy this, because it was merely personal preference for why I had a problem with it, but i’d still recommend

A story of grief, young love, moving on… plus just a sprinkling of magic!
I so enjoyed learning about Raf and Yas as they grew into adulthood and discovered love. They and their town had been through so much…
I don’t know if there’s a wrong way to grieve, there’s definitely not a right way. This story showed so many different ways to grieve.
I also loved that magic was an underlying element of the story, but honestly, not a character, like in so many other fantasy stories. It was there, and I knew it would fit in somehow, but it didn’t overtake the story.
I read Forty Words For Love by @aishacs early thanks to @netgalley. You can read it on August 22!
#ilovetoread #kidsliterature #advancedreaderscopy

Yasmine and Rafay grow from the aftermath of their magical town of Moonlight Bay. A death has marred the town and the normal pink and lavender waters have turned gray. Almost immediately the townspeople have become devoid of life and energy. They set it upon themselves to solve what has happened.

This book starts out rough like a hard pill to swallow with the plot being slow and dragging. The two main characters are really the center of the story and the world they come from. They’ve always had feeling for each other and it doesn’t really blossom till they’re adults.

This story is magical realism at its core. And some stories like that are hit or miss for me. The story and plot were imaginative but really lacked in ways sadly.

Thank you NetGalley & publisher for this eARC.

Moonlight bay is a magical town and this story follows between Yas and Raf's friendship. The story between them was definitely more of a YA romance, with dual POV where you can see from their perspectives. It was cute and naive.

But what I feel lacking was, the lack of explanation in world building. I have so many questions and when you start on page 1 of this book, you are already in the middle of the conflict which I was so confused. Slow start for me because I did not understand what is going on.

Would I recommend it? Probably yes, especially if you are into cozy, warm YA with magical realism.

3.5 stars rounded up

This is a book that really grew on me despite a rough start. Forty Words for Love is a magical realism YA novel about the treatment of refugees or immigrants, grief, and a small town that is dying after a major employer leaves. The beginning is both slow and confusing- world-building elements aren't really explained but eventually you kind of get the gist of what's happening. I don't know that was the best choice for this kind of book that is situated mostly in our world, but in a small seaside town that used to have magical waters and still has a magical tree that transports refugees to our world.

Raf and Yas are the two teens at the center of the story. He is a refugee who works at the town diner and dreams of going to school for architecture, but his people are treated badly by many locals and he feels obligated to stay and help the diner and with his younger siblings.

Yas is from a family who are long-time residents of the town, using shells harvested from the magical waters to make necklaces that heal hurt hearts. Her mom is part therapist, part witch (though that word isn't used). But her dad is struggling to find work and the seashells that used to be plentiful are now hard to find.

And of course, Raf and Yas are childhood friends who secretly have feelings for each other. This was a really lovely and heartfelt book with a lot to say about creating art, love, healing from grief after loss, and standing up for outsiders. The magical elements needed a little more scaffolding early on, but I ended up really liking it. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

Forty Words for Love by Aisha Saeed
⭐⭐⭐/5

**Thank you NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for honest feedback!**

Moonlight Bay is known for their magical pink and lavender waters. The town gets by on the close knit community and the tourism. But one day, a tragic death turns the waters dark. A lot of the townsfolk blames the Golub, a group of people who mysteriously arrived from a giant tree and are now refugees living in the town's forest. Raf, a Golub, and Yas, a member of Moonlight Bay, have been friends since the day Raf arrived in the forest. The two teens struggle with the new town and the angry people who inhabit it. As they both try and figure out what they want from life, the people Moonlight Bay grow more and more discontented.

This books had the premise to be amazing, but unfortunately fell flat. It seemed like there were so many objectives, that none of them could reach their full potential. The Golub were confusing to figure out and I would have loved to learn more about their background. Then it was supposed to be an allusion to the prejudice people feel in the real world, but it seemed to be barely touched on. People gave Raf dirty looks, but that was about as far as it went. The magical properties of the water were touched on, but not really. It all just felt like it wasn't enough. I wanted more. I liked Raf and Yas and enjoyed their characters as well as their stories, but I felt like I needed more. The cover was stunning, which is why I originally wanted to read this book. Sadly, I was a little disappointed. I liked the book, but I didn't love it.