2 stars

Fatima Tate Takes the Cake captures the themes of finding your voice and advocating for yourself. VanBrakle manages to portray the reality of abusive relationships that many young girls experience. The characters were lacking development beyond their basic characterizations. I wasn’t a fan of the writing style as it tended to be more juvenile in nature and could have benefitted from more rounds of editing. The story would have benefited if it were marketed for ages 13-15 instead of older young adult. It was a jarring reading experience as the pacing was additionally all over the place. This story had great potential but ultimately ended up feeling undeveloped with an overall need for more revision.

I definitely think this is an important story, However, I do not think it should be advertised as a romance (it's really just contemporary YA fiction). I had to end up DNFing this, because Raheem gave me the ick so much. I know that is the point, so I still definitely recommend this to people, it was just too much for me at this time.

I picked this book because I was really intrigued and the cover is absolutely stunning. For once, I wanted to feel represented in a contemporary young adult book.
Unfortunately, I was really uncomfortable witht he turns of events. As a muslim, theire are some inconsistencies that are too deep 1. to relate 2. to pass by and enjoy my reading. It's kind of spoilery so I won't say too much except that, after speaking with other muslims who read the book, we felt the same way toward some scenes.

this was okay, but read a little juvenile and i didn't feel connected to the characters or what happens to them at all. i can see other reader enjoying this a lot tho!

— thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the free digital ARC.

First of all, this one of the most gorgeous covers I've seen in a long time, props to the artist!!

Secondly, as I am not a Muslim reader, so I of course can't comment on the Muslim representation within this book, so please look to other reviews from Muslim readers for this!

I do think this book was underdeveloped - the characters didn't feel fleshed out or like real people. The main character only had one personality trait of loving baking - there was nothing else to her really, and this felt the same for the rest of the characters, they just had one trait to them and that was it (they were rich, or they were mean, or they were the best friend). The story also felt rushed, especially in the beginning - Fatima meets Raheem and they hang out together within the first 20 pages - where was the pacing? It felt all over the place throughout the book, and it made for a jarring reading experience every time I picked up the book. I think this book had great potential but just needed a serious going over to properly develop the storyline, fill out the plotholes, and make the characters feel genuine.

I loved this book so much! I can’t pick one thing I didn’t like about this book, it was truly perfection in my eyes. Told from many different point of views, that it gave such a well rounded storyline that was just everything. Love love love!!!

Fatima Tate wants to be a baker AND enjoy some innocent flirting with her hot friend Raheem—but her strict Muslim parents would never approve of either...

great novel with interesting characters,

17 year old Muslim baker, Fatima, can't believe it when her crush Raheem expresses an interest in her. So much so, that he proposes marriage in the way a good Muslim should. But it turns out Raheem is not as great as he seems.

I had no idea which way this book was going to go considering I went into it totally blind, with the gorgeous cover initially reeling me in. The writing was easy to read but the arc copy had a lot of formatting and spelling errors, which I hope were picked up in the editing process. The storyline was decent for a YA book however a lot of inconsistencies were in the book religion-wise. I'd be keen to read more by the author as she definitely shows promise.

It’s a difficult one to review for me when I try to describe these reads, do I say I enjoyed it, when there is control, manipulation and a developing abusive relationship, no you can’t, but then it’s still YA, it’s full of diversity, representation, Fatima’s love of baking and I really did enjoy these. It’s a really strong look control, ownership and fighting for independence, As someone who is agnostic and formerly Christian I can’t judge on the Muslim representation, wether it’s fair or harsh, that’s not my call. I would just say to anyone criticising, the author can only write based on their lived experiences, the same way you can only read with your lived experiences, it doesn’t make you or the authors right or wrong. Although I really enjoyed the premise of Fatima's baking dreams, it obviously takes a back seat to the more central focus of Fatima trying to decide what she wants from life , love and her parents . Her parents I thought were lovely and I loved her friendship with her best friend, showing the diversity of beliefs, and identities within the Muslim faith. I loved the universal themes of growing up, trying to be yourself and trying to honour your parents, but not hurt them too. This is a strong YA Contemporary read and I feel really glad I got the chance to experience Fatima story

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I personally enjoyed reading this book and seeing the world through the eyes of a different Muslim pov than the one I'm used to seeing! As someone who loves to bake I esp enjoyed the baking bits! However as I have many Muslim friends from my own country and as this book goes against many popular Muslim beliefs, recommending it publicly is something I choose to refrain from doing this time. But it in no way reflects my feelings about the book!

This is Khadijah's first novel and it shows. But! It still had a strong story to tell. It's not a halal Muslim story, you can tell because the blurb says she has premarital sex etc. I'm still glad the author included the lgbtqia community and accepted than condemned it as I'm seeing in some of the reviews that it was totally wrong for the author to do. Not everyone is the same in any religion and I still found Fatima and her life relatable.
Her friendship with Z was fantastic and I'm glad there was a lot of scenes with them just vibing.
The baking writing was a bit lackluster, hello where is she getting all these baking food supplies when the electricity bill is past due and their parents are struggling? Baking everyday would go first lol.
Overall, gorgeous cover and a great story to tell.

DNF at about 5%.

I wanted to give this book a fair chance, but I just didn't like the writing style at all. I'm sure other people would enjoy this book tho! It just wasn't for me personally....

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Where do I even start with this book? I saw it as I was scrolling through NetGalley one day the cover and title intrigued me. Fatima Tate Takes the Cake? Is she a baker? I also thought the cover was very interesting. I clicked on it. And that’s where everything went downhill. The eye-catching opening line to the description has “enjoy some innocent flirting with her hot friend Raheem” I’m sorry what??? Alright, fine, let me just see what this is about, maybe it’ll get better.

It did not get better.

I almost DNF’d this book too many times to count. I had to force myself through it all while trying to figure out how to make a review for it. And now we’re here with the second complete rewrite of a review for the whole book because I did force myself to finish it and was sorely disappointed and angry.

Before I delve into this I do want to say that I can somewhat see what the author was trying to do with this book. The topics she’s talking about—expectations from family, abuse, the shortcomings of the Muslim community—are all very real and important and I do think they should be talked about but I don’t think this book was the way to do it.

We start the novel with Fatima, a 17-year-old high school senior who wants to be a pastry chef. Her parents want her to go to nursing school and disapprove of her dream to be a pastry chef because they don’t think it’s stable or secure enough to support her, they think that nursing is though (Oh boy it’s already starting, are all of us Muslims going to be stereotyped into this thing where parents only want doctor, lawyer, or engineer?). In chapter one the chef at the soup kitchen where she volunteers tells her about an opportunity of a lifetime—a baking championship. If Fatima enters it and wins she (and a parent, since she is a minor) will get to stay for three days at the college of her dreams and learn from renowned pastry chefs. Too good to pass up, right? Too bad she needs one of her disapproving parents’ signatures.

Now the actual plot of the book was alright. But it could have been executed way better. In the synopsis, it’s revealed that once Fatima and Raheem get engaged, he begins to be manipulative and controlling. Because of that, I expected it to be a bigger deal that he was like that and for it to happen earlier on. It didn’t though??? They didn’t get engaged until 46% into the book and it took even longer for the threats and control to begin showing through (and I’ll dive more into this later on as well). There was also the plot of Fatima entering the championship unbeknownst to her parents. That wasn’t a big deal either.

And what do I mean by that? I mean that when her parents discovered she had entered the championship and was a finalist (thanks to Raheem), they didn’t care. In fact, they showed up to the competition and cheered her on. And when she won second place they were nothing but proud of her and she faced NO consequences for going behind their backs to do this….I have no words.

Let’s throw up a wide lens and look at the whole plot. Throughout the book, the plot was just feeling too convenient. Let’s take the first chapter as an example: Fatima gets off her volunteer shift at the same time as Raheem? Yeah that’s normal they started at the same time. Her best friend Zaynab wasn’t there to pick her up immediately and she’s never late and always picks up Fatima? Ok, a bit buyable, maybe she got delayed. Fatima texts Zaynab asking her if she’s going to pick up Fatima then almost immediately gets into Raheem’s car so he can drive her home? GIRL WHAT- I just- That doesn’t even make sense. Between Zaynab not showing up, Fatima not giving her the chance to show up, and her just getting into this dude’s car. Like girl- every single person that I know knows not to get into random people’s cars, even if you work with them.

Even later on in the book everything was too convenient. Too many times another character (typically Zaynab) didn’t do what they were meant to (for example, show up to meet with Fatima or come to a training session at the gym) which meant that Raheem and Fatima were left alone. In another incident, Raheem conveniently showed up where Zaynab, Fatima, and Zaynab’s girlfriend Amber were having dinner. And Amber and Zaynab conveniently decided to leave the two of them alone. To me, that just felt like lazy writing. Give me a reason to believe that this incident would have happened even if Zaynab had shown up or some other character had done (or not done) something to get us to this point. You should not have to rely on a character (who, up until the book takes place, seems to have been nothing but the most reliable person in the world) being unreliable for your plot and character development to move forward.

And beyond moving your plot forward, things should flow. The first few chapters were excruciating to get through. I literally read the first 4 chapters then didn’t pick up the book for over a month because I didn’t like the idea of an entire book with chapters like that (interestingly the rest of the chapters weren’t like the first few, which made no sense to me, where is the consistency?) The writing wasn’t flowing and I found myself constantly having to put my phone down and breathe for a few minutes before picking it back up again. And that wasn’t just because of difficult-to-get-through chapters, it was everything in the book. The characters, the baking, the pacing, and so much maore.

Now for the pacing. Everything felt too fast and then too slow. The baking parts were written in so much detail that the writing felt too sloggy. I was crawling through those parts. Then other parts happened so fast that I had to reread them just to understand what was happening. Some chapters were only an hour while others were over the span of a week. Sometimes we’d have time jumps that made no sense and left me wondering how long the jump had been. I don’t think this was entirely the fault of the author as her editor should have picked up on this and fixed it.

One said thing that irked me oh so much was the baking, as I just said. For something that was so central to Fatima and supposedly relaxed her, it didn’t feel like that at all. The only times she baked were when she was asked to (such as when she was practicing or competing for the championship or the couple of times Zaynab’s mom asked if Fatima could bake for her work) and we never saw the effects of her baking. It was all about how she made something or another, in fact, those parts felt more like a recipe book than Fatima baking. Additionally, for someone who claims to love baking, she didn’t know all that much. Now I’m no baker, but I know a few tricks from watching and helping my younger sister out with some baking from time to time. The fact that Fatima was amazed by a chef putting their cookie dough into the fridge before putting it to bake astounded me. It’s impossible to read a cookie recipe and not hear about this trick. It’s even more impossible to be a baker who wants to be a pastry chef and not know about this. Once again, I’m not a baker and this is common knowledge to me. Everyone knows that, but apparently not Fatima. Because that’s so believable (/sarcastic)

One of the most difficult things for me to wrap my head around was the fact that Fatima was 17 and a high school senior. Between the way that she acted and her naivety, I couldn’t buy that she was 17, she seemed more like she was 15 or possibly 16. And before anyone tries to be like “This is a YA!! They’re only ‘childish’ because you’re reading YA!!!” I’m 16. My 13-year-old sister probably has more life experience and is less naive than Fatima. I genuinely can not believe that she’s meant to be 17. She just doesn’t have the smarts of someone who should be 17.

Fatima as a character was also a weak part of the book. Fatima is a hijabi who tries to pray all five prayers (even if she does struggle to get them all in on time every day) but then she’ll kiss the guy she’s crushing on and all she cares about afterward is if her parents will find out. There’s nothing in her thoughts about her connection to Islam or Allah, it’s only about what her parents and the community would say. That shows even more later on in the book when she and Raheem are engaged and she takes off her hijab in front of him then they sleep together (yes, you did read all of that right but I recommend rereading it). Nothing from her except worry that her mother will figure it out. And that just goes on.

When Fatima begins finding out how manipulative and controlling Raheem is and begins having second thoughts about getting married to him, he threatens to tell her parents, the community, and the Imam of their masjid about what they did, which would, since the community they live in is misogynistic they will forgive Raheem and his family but Fatima’s and her family’s good reputations will be down the drain and never to be seen again (WHOA let’s back up here real quick. Unfortunately, due to the more negative parts of society and the patriarchy, yes many communities—Muslim and non-Muslim—are patriarchal and misogynistic. It is not limited to Muslim ones, and Islam is vehemently against believing that men are better than women or that women are better than men).

And those threats are obviously very real to Fatima and she worries herself sick about what would happen to her and her family if that is exposed to her community BUT THEN NOTHING HAPPENS. She ends up calling off the engagement and literally running out of her own engagement party to attend the final challenge of her baking championship. And although Raheem did tell her parents what they did, there’s not even a mention of if he told the rest of the community or the Imam, or if Fatima and her family dealt with those consequences or not. Which means that all that worrying that the reader did on behalf of Fatima was left unanswered. It felt like there was a piece of the story missing. What happened to all of the serious threats? Why is she just living her life as if it was a breakup that caused her hurt because she was in love? Whyyyyyyyyyyy why why why

Overall, Fatima Tate Takes the Cake felt like the author was trying to do too many things but she didn't know how to and her editor was not helpful.

Content warning: toxic relationship
I don't know how to feel about this. At its heart, this is a story about the evolution of a toxic relationship, and that is not an enjoyable thing. I think how it was portrayed was well done, especially the shifts from him being this perfect guy and one she felt so lucky to have to him trying to control her whole life and eventually threatening her. It felt very realistic up until the relationship ended, and then there seemed to be no consequences and everything was great. It was a very stark contrast, and while Fatima grew throughout it didn't feel all that rewarding.
The subject matter is important and I think this could be helpful to younger audiences.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fatima is a high school senior who volunteers alongside Raheem at a soup kitchen. Her love for baking lends itself well for this role, and she brings in baked goodies for those coming to the soup kitchen to take. A head pastry chef samples one of her goodies, instantly sees Fatima's talent and recommends she enters a competition. Her over bearing mother instantly shoots this down, viewing baking beyond a mere hobby as a waste.

Raheem drives Fatima home one day, and sparks fly. They start texting back and forth for a few days and then without wasting any time, their parents are arranging a marriage. They begin to get closer physically, but there are a lot of secrets between them that reveal mentally they are not in sync.

I feel like there's a lot going on right out of the gate with this, and didn't allow for enough depth. We see Fatima chasing her baking dreams, the contentious dynamic between her and her mother, and the 0 to 100 with Raheem all pretty much at once. There were things that baffled me as well culturally speaking. I did enjoy the friendship she has with Zaynab and the insight Zaynab offers her. The fact that Zaynab has a girlfriend however, feels like a token LGBTQ representation that I'm not really sure did anything for the plotline.

Thank you @netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF

The beautiful cover and interesting synopsis gave me high hopes for this book, but I had to give up halfway through. The writing was not getting better and the characters were not believable, nor their actions.

The story starts very abruptly as well, with the main character already having a crush on an older boy, who promptly invites himself into her home to come on to her within the first chapter.

The premise was great - Muslim teen aspiring to choose her own career path as a baker gets trapped in an engagement with a controlling guy and she needs to stand up for herself. The execution was not great though, this novel could have used several more edits.

The only plus I can give is that the writing might work for younger teens, and the book does have great diversity and a good message.

Thank you anyway to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing an eARC for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Although the premise emphasizes Fatima's baking dreams, the competition plot line takes a back seat to the more central conflict of Fatima struggling to figure out what she wants from Raheem, love, and life in general. Her loving parents and devoted friendship with her queer BFF anchor the story, which honors the diversity of beliefs, practices, and identities within VanBrakle's Muslim faith tradition. VanBrakle taps into the universal adolescent experiences of straining against family rules and struggling to find an individual identities while remaining grounded in Fatima's specific and authentic experiences as a Black Muslim teen in Albuquerque, NM. This strong YA Contemporary will delight fans of the genre and allow readers of the (wildly underrepresented) Black Muslim community to see themselves reflected in one or more of the well-developed characters.

Recommended: yup
for a chilling toxic relationship, for religious shaming and pressure, for a girl who loves to cook and tries to find herself

Thoughts:
First up, this book was really hard to read and times and genuinely made me shudder because of how helpless I was watching Fatima get close to this guy who's basically a walking red flag. He's so many red flags he could just be a whole banner. My god. And it's 100% not on her, because she's hella young and has NO IDEA about anything romantic due to the rules of her religion. So it's not just a naive girl making thoughtless choices, it's a young girl being told these are the correct choices.

I appreciate in this book that though Fatima's religion is a driving factor in many ways, it's never blamed. There was no sweeping generalization felt in the narrative trying to either condemn nor praise it -- it was just one story of one possible path that can occur. Fatima has deep faith, even if she sometimes struggles to get up for early morning prayer. But her faith in God, though it's not one I share, was moving, and was a part of her that I really admired.

Baking is the other huge focus, and a nice little touch is a few recipes at the end of the book of dishes that were featured during it. I'm not a baker, but dang do I love when food-focused books actually deliver the chance to eat what the characters eat! Fatima works hard to carve her path, even when she's extremely unsure of what it should look like by any definition. Which, yeah, is pretty common for many late teens, I think. xD She tries very hard to be bold, even when she ends up getting burned by it.

The story narrative is very straightforward: Fatima's conflicts are with her relationship with Raheem, and with pursuing baking despite her parents wishes. With such a narrow focus, you get a lot of detail on each, rather than many side stories weaving together. For some reason I expected the story to start out with Fatima already with Raheem, so I was surprised but pleased to get some build up and background to their meeting and getting to know each other.

So yes, overall I think this was a strong look at the topic, though I hesitate to say it was an "enjoyable" book because it was genuinely really hard to read for me at times. Things Raheem said made a pit of dread form in my stomach, things like "Just remember you're mine" said with a wink. At best that would be affronting to my independence, but in this case it's a sign of something so much worse. If you read this, just be ready for those moments, if that's something that will affect you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Holiday House for a free advanced copy. This is my honest review.

My Reaction: Mission Accomplished!

I was drawn to this book because of its beautiful cover but let me tell you, it was quite the page-turner. I was able to start and finish it today. I am thankful to NetGalley for providing a copy of it, in exchange for my honest review.

Fatima Tate is a 17 year old Black American Muslim girl who has a long-standing passion for baking. Her scones, pies, cookies and cakes are second-nature for her to create and a dream to all who have had an opportunity to enjoy them. Fatima is in the final lap of her senior year and while she would like to be excited about her next steps after graduation, they are not her own. She's got a BFF who has her back and encourages her at every turn and a new found crush in Raheem who is charming and near perfect for her. She's also got a desire to be a baker, against her conservative parents wishes.

Fatima's mother is very set on her finding a marketable degree program in the medical field as she is a nurse herself. Her mom does not want Fatima to suffer in a way that she and her husband did when they first married. There's a lot she wish she could tell her parents about her own desires, but she fears that they won't listen nor understand. So when she begins a hot and steamy romance with Raheem, she keeps it to herself until one day their parents decide to arrange their marriage. At first it seems like an ideal situation and then just a little too perfect as the arrangement is rushed and controlled by Raheem and his mother. Not to mention, as his secrets and lies are made clear, Fatima is forced to make a lasting decision about her future. Will it be marriage or pursuing her dream of becoming a pastry chef?

This is a really well-written, page-turning coming of age story. I loved being in Fatima's head as she navigates the choices she's forced to make for herself, regarding her love life, her friendships, and even those that will affect her family and larger community. I think the relationship between her and her BFF Zee was my favorite!

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
Fatima Tate Takes the Cake is a book that I requested without thinking much about it, and while I ended up enjoying it, I must admit that a large part of that is possibly due to my experience as a non-Muslim, non-Black reader. While this book is by a Black Muslim author, and is technically “OwnVoices,” it’s one of those books where there’s a lot of nuance that likely impacts OwnVoices reading experiences, such as publishers’ tendency to cater to a Western, Christian/secular gaze, with myriad popular titles about Muslim characters who aren’t devout, but are not properly balanced by an equal amount of books that depict devout Muslims in a positive light. With that in mind, please take my review with a grain of salt and consult some Black/Muslim reviewers for further context.
With that being said, I did enjoy this book for the most part. Fatima is a complex character, and I enjoyed her complex journey of figuring out who she is, especially as a Black Muslim in the West. She’s messy and makes some mistakes (some rather controversial ones at that), and while I can see how that feeds into some of the issues people have, I like how it also contextualizes some of the broader cultural issues with double standards that come into play as her relationship with Raheem plays out in all its dramatic glory.
I loved Fatima’s friendship with Zaynab, who is a lesbian dating a non-Muslim. Given the cultural and religious taboos around that, I respect how this subplot handled that aspect, including having her be accepted by her mother.
Speaking of parents, I was pleasantly surprised at Fatima's relationship with her parents. The big buzzword “conservative parents” in the blurb clearly meant to draw in the secular audience, made me wonder how it would all turn out. However, while things are complicated throughout the story, with Fatima feeling pressure to keep things from them due to her environment and the stigma around her actions, their relationship is ultimately a loving one, even if they don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, and they just want what’s best for her.
While I enjoyed this book, I will repeat my suggestion that my review should not hold more weight than those of Black/Muslim reviewers. With that caveat, I do tentatively recommend it to those looking for multicultural coming-of-age contemporaries.