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snowhitereads's review
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The Henna Wars is a YA sapphic romance with great muslim and brown/black representation and even more representation in the side characters. Even more importantly, it’s an own voice representation.
Yes, we need more of this!
This book manages to keep a particular balance between being lighthearted and cute and dealing with heavy and complex topics such as racism, homophobia, being outed, bullying and cultural appropriation and microaggressions, especially amongst teenagers. I also liked how it portrayed coming out to a Muslim family without getting too dark and heavy.
Overall it maintains a great balance between serious and light-hearted, and it definitely worked for me.
I love the discussion about the lack of diversity within LGBT representation and the intersectionality between sexual orientation/race/religion.
It also brings strong points on how people don’t realy care about social problems and discrimination unless it has a direct impact on them. It also shines a light on how the words of someone in power, like the president, can have a great impact and threaten an individual's life.
My favourite thing about this book was the characters, especifically Nishat, Priti, and Flávia. They were all well developed, complex, distinct and flawed.
I absolutely love the sister’s relationship.
On a personal level, I did relate to the coming out process of Nishat to her parents. At times, they said the same exact thing in real life. At one point, I even wrote in the book “Dad, is that you?”
Also, the whole thing about being outed in high school, the whispering, the comments and the people refusing to use the same changing rooms as her hit a little too close to home. But that also means it is a realistic portrayal of that event.
My biggest issue with this book is the fact that no one saw any consequences for their actions, not in regards to racism, cultural appropriation or homophobia. It kinda sells the idea that he best way to handle racist and homophobic abuse is with a quiet, enduring dignity since Nishat actively protects her abusers many times, even when others support her and encourage her to report them.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Deadnaming, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Transphobia, and Xenophobia
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