Reviews

Intensa by Tahereh Mafi

livia_farmer's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

haialdnfiad's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

kaulhilo's review against another edition

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1.0

a very pointless book that worked very hard at being very casually offensive? sometimes i feel like y’all effectively hate islam going by all these live laugh love type books

hmmitsvenus's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Read for the 2024 Asian Readathon. Prompt 1: Read a book written by an Asian author.

An Emotion of Great Delight was a wonderful exploration into the life of one Muslim teen living in a post-9/11 world, while navigating complicated family relationships, friendships, society and love.

I loved the writing in this book. It was so beautiful and atmospheric, and the writing flowed really well, so I breezed through this book super easily and I really understood Shadi's feelings. I especially loved the descriptions of Shadi and her family's grief and sadness; sad and gut-wrenching, just my favourite. I also really loved the explorations into the topics of complicated family relationships and religion in this book. It was interesting. And the romance! Super cute. I'm not normally a huge fan of romance, but I ate this one up.

In all honesty, though, I did think that this book was too short. Despite its rather limited length, this book tries to tackle a lot of very complicated topics, which I think could have been done better if only this book was a little bit longer and we'd gone into more detail. The ending was also incredibly abrupt and open-ended; there was really no clear resolution. 

Even so, I think this book still deserves four stars simply because of how much I enjoyed it. I really loved the writing. I had fun reading this book; plain and simple.

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naikaii's review against another edition

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emotional sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

abbyl819's review against another edition

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3.0

This story is definitely very character driven, as it felt like there was no plot. The writing and scenes were very emotional at times and Shadi and her situation had me tearing up at times because I definitely felt for her. However, the end felt very sudden and inconclusive, and it seemed like nothing had even happened yet. I wish it was longer, because it seemed like it was over before it even started.

eryn_elenath's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

brookey8888's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25


I enjoyed this, but I think that to much was happening and none of it get wrapped up or flushed out. I appreciate the topics discussed in this, all of them being hard and difficult conversations, but half of them weren’t even concluded. This also just felt off to me? I’m not Muslim so I can’t speak on the 
Representation And the some of the  topics discussed, but it just didn’t seem All that well done to me. I know the author is Muslim so maybe that’s her experience, but read reviews from Muslim readers.

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minayaayy's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

sarahreads143's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0