Scan barcode
beasleysbooks's review against another edition
3.0
A Girl Like That made me think and contemplate about a society I know nothing about. In that way, I think this book is so important. Learning about people who are different from you and how their lives are affected by politics, religion, etc. is a big part of developing empathy (a skill many have left undeveloped in this day and age).
On the other hand, this book portrayed the society within its pages in a deeply negative light. In some places, yes these things may be true, but in others they are not. The book did what it was meant to do. It sparked a conversation and piqued my curiosity. It was just very very sad.
On the other hand, this book portrayed the society within its pages in a deeply negative light. In some places, yes these things may be true, but in others they are not. The book did what it was meant to do. It sparked a conversation and piqued my curiosity. It was just very very sad.
buuboobaby's review against another edition
4.0
May Contain Spoilers
This is a hard book to review without giving out a lot of spoilers, but I’m going to try my best. I was initially attracted to the book because of the setting, and the premise sounded intriguing. Was Zarin really a troublemaker, a deviant girl who leads her schoolmates astray? How did she and Porus end up in the deadly accident? Just bad luck? Someone looking to get back at her for some slight? Once I picked it up, I found it compelling and hard to put down. Did I like it, though? I don’t know. This is a hard book to like, because when I finished it, I like I had been fed through a wringer.
Zarin is an orphan, and the circumstances behind her mother’s death are shady. Zarin was there, a young child, and she had blocked all memories of the incident from her mind. She remembers blood, and her aunt’s overwrought reaction, but not much else.
Sent to live with her mother’s younger sister and her husband, Zarin’s childhood sucks. Her aunt is beyond overprotective, attempting to keep her from all contact with boys. Since Zarin was born out of wedlock, and her mother’s questionable job decision brought shame on the family, her aunt is determined that Zarin will do no wrong. No gossip will sully her door. What she gets instead is a belligerent teenager who only wants to be understood and loved. Her uncle exists in the background, allowing his wife to raise Zarin as she sees fit. He objects to the physical abuse that is doled out, but after a few futile attempts at interfering, backs off again, abandoning Zarin to his wife’s unstable tantrums and questionable mental state.
The sad thing about this book is that every adult in Zarin’s life turns their back on her. They aren’t there for her, accuse her of being a bad influence on everyone around her. Parents warn their daughters away from her, and Zarin makes some bad decisions in her desperation to feel normal, like she has a right to be loved. She has no female friends, and is isolated from her classmates by her unapproachable attitude, which is understandable since she is often the subject of unsavory gossip. To her, skipping school and hanging out with boys in their cars is worth the risk of getting caught by the religious police in Saudi Arabia. All she wants is an escape from her crap life, and she is willing to risk anything to get it.
When her childhood friend, Porus, moves to Saudi Arabia after the death of his father and takes a job at a local market, he offers a stability that has been missing in her life. Unfortunately, she rejects his comfort time and again. He is boring. He is too nice a guy. He wants a commitment, maybe, she doesn’t want anything to do with that. Instead, she makes things rough for Porus, putting him a bad spot with his mother, his employer, and even her aunt and uncle time and time again.
The story starts with Porus and Zarin dead and mangled after a car accident. The gossips whisper that the awful girl finally got what was coming to her. Too bad she took that nice boy with her. The examination into the events leading up to her death is painful and traumatic, and includes verbal and physical abuse from her guardians, as well as sexual abuse. Zarin had no one in her corner, and by the time Porus arrives, she has spent most of her life being beaten down and molded into a proper member of a strict, repressive society. Her attempts to find respite for herself lead to even more grief. While I found the writing compelling, this isn’t a story that I can ultimately say that I loved. It’s dark, and sad, and in the end, Zarin doesn’t ever get to catch a break.
Grade: 4 stars
This is a hard book to review without giving out a lot of spoilers, but I’m going to try my best. I was initially attracted to the book because of the setting, and the premise sounded intriguing. Was Zarin really a troublemaker, a deviant girl who leads her schoolmates astray? How did she and Porus end up in the deadly accident? Just bad luck? Someone looking to get back at her for some slight? Once I picked it up, I found it compelling and hard to put down. Did I like it, though? I don’t know. This is a hard book to like, because when I finished it, I like I had been fed through a wringer.
Zarin is an orphan, and the circumstances behind her mother’s death are shady. Zarin was there, a young child, and she had blocked all memories of the incident from her mind. She remembers blood, and her aunt’s overwrought reaction, but not much else.
Sent to live with her mother’s younger sister and her husband, Zarin’s childhood sucks. Her aunt is beyond overprotective, attempting to keep her from all contact with boys. Since Zarin was born out of wedlock, and her mother’s questionable job decision brought shame on the family, her aunt is determined that Zarin will do no wrong. No gossip will sully her door. What she gets instead is a belligerent teenager who only wants to be understood and loved. Her uncle exists in the background, allowing his wife to raise Zarin as she sees fit. He objects to the physical abuse that is doled out, but after a few futile attempts at interfering, backs off again, abandoning Zarin to his wife’s unstable tantrums and questionable mental state.
The sad thing about this book is that every adult in Zarin’s life turns their back on her. They aren’t there for her, accuse her of being a bad influence on everyone around her. Parents warn their daughters away from her, and Zarin makes some bad decisions in her desperation to feel normal, like she has a right to be loved. She has no female friends, and is isolated from her classmates by her unapproachable attitude, which is understandable since she is often the subject of unsavory gossip. To her, skipping school and hanging out with boys in their cars is worth the risk of getting caught by the religious police in Saudi Arabia. All she wants is an escape from her crap life, and she is willing to risk anything to get it.
When her childhood friend, Porus, moves to Saudi Arabia after the death of his father and takes a job at a local market, he offers a stability that has been missing in her life. Unfortunately, she rejects his comfort time and again. He is boring. He is too nice a guy. He wants a commitment, maybe, she doesn’t want anything to do with that. Instead, she makes things rough for Porus, putting him a bad spot with his mother, his employer, and even her aunt and uncle time and time again.
The story starts with Porus and Zarin dead and mangled after a car accident. The gossips whisper that the awful girl finally got what was coming to her. Too bad she took that nice boy with her. The examination into the events leading up to her death is painful and traumatic, and includes verbal and physical abuse from her guardians, as well as sexual abuse. Zarin had no one in her corner, and by the time Porus arrives, she has spent most of her life being beaten down and molded into a proper member of a strict, repressive society. Her attempts to find respite for herself lead to even more grief. While I found the writing compelling, this isn’t a story that I can ultimately say that I loved. It’s dark, and sad, and in the end, Zarin doesn’t ever get to catch a break.
Grade: 4 stars
melinda_auniquelyportablemagic's review against another edition
4.0
I read this for 2018-19 White Pine list. It was definitely not a feel-good book, but it definitely provokes deep feelings. I am looking forward to the group discussions when a bunch of the kids have read it. I will be interested to see how they feel!
I was struck by how similar the lives of teenagers can be, despite all the vast cultural differences.
I was struck by how similar the lives of teenagers can be, despite all the vast cultural differences.
shelby_7664's review against another edition
4.0
This is a pretty deep, intense book, looking at the life of one young woman living in Saudi Arabia. (Spoiler, but she wasn’t treated very well). When she is killed during a car accident and is found in the car with a boy who is not her brother or her husband (scandal!), we retrace her final days and find out what really happened to her. I feel like book deserves more attention than I was able to give to it during the readathon, and I plan to do a reread soon.
vickycbooks's review against another edition
I actually liked this a lot, but it caught me off guard with how heavy it was. It's a really interesting concept, but it's also a little dark and unexpected compared to the cover.
It's been 2 years (this is my 2 years post read revised review) and honestly I really want to reread. I feel like I will enjoy this a lot more a second time around.
It's been 2 years (this is my 2 years post read revised review) and honestly I really want to reread. I feel like I will enjoy this a lot more a second time around.
heykellyjensen's review against another edition
There's a lot of good stuff going on in this book, but at the end, none of it coalesced enough to engage me more than thinking that there was a lot of good stuff going on. Maybe it's the fact the book is told from so many points of view that all sound the same.
Zarin is "one of those girls" with a reputation in her Saudi high school. She's not Saudi herself, but rather, her family moved to Jeddah from India. She's often talked about, gossiped about for being a girl who breaks the established rules when it comes to boys. She's kept secret boyfriends, and adding to that, she's being raised by an abusive aunt. But it's her close friendship with Porus that makes those rumors grow louder -- they are, after all, alone in a car together when it crashes and kills them both.
The setting in this book is awesome and going in knowing that it's going to explore the various Saudi cultures and traditions clashing in one place is a big plus. This is ultimately a book about a girl who earns an unfair reputation, and it's also about the boys who abuse girls for their own gain. There is sexual assault in this book, caused by a drug that a boy slips into a drink. It's a repeat behavior, though we only "see" it on page once. The rest we hear about.
The book follows in the wake of the accident, flashing backward to what led to Zarin and Porus being in that car together, which is against laws and traditions. We get a nice sense of their individual back stories, as well as why they're the friends that they are, but the pieces don't come together in a neat, tidy, or immerse-able way. The secondary characters are quite flat and more stereotypes of evil/challenged characters than fully fleshed and flawed individuals.
I'd like to see more books set outside the US, and while this book will work for many YA readers, it didn't quite work on the character development level for me. For a character-driven novel, that let it down.
Zarin is "one of those girls" with a reputation in her Saudi high school. She's not Saudi herself, but rather, her family moved to Jeddah from India. She's often talked about, gossiped about for being a girl who breaks the established rules when it comes to boys. She's kept secret boyfriends, and adding to that, she's being raised by an abusive aunt. But it's her close friendship with Porus that makes those rumors grow louder -- they are, after all, alone in a car together when it crashes and kills them both.
The setting in this book is awesome and going in knowing that it's going to explore the various Saudi cultures and traditions clashing in one place is a big plus. This is ultimately a book about a girl who earns an unfair reputation, and it's also about the boys who abuse girls for their own gain. There is sexual assault in this book, caused by a drug that a boy slips into a drink. It's a repeat behavior, though we only "see" it on page once. The rest we hear about.
The book follows in the wake of the accident, flashing backward to what led to Zarin and Porus being in that car together, which is against laws and traditions. We get a nice sense of their individual back stories, as well as why they're the friends that they are, but the pieces don't come together in a neat, tidy, or immerse-able way. The secondary characters are quite flat and more stereotypes of evil/challenged characters than fully fleshed and flawed individuals.
I'd like to see more books set outside the US, and while this book will work for many YA readers, it didn't quite work on the character development level for me. For a character-driven novel, that let it down.
ifthebook's review against another edition
4.0
This was a tough read. Going into it, I had no idea what to expect and honestly thought it was going to be a drama-filled romp through Saudi Arabia. That is not at all what this book is. Instead, it’s a very heavy book about gender imbalances, rape, and religion. And I really liked that. Yes, it was horrible to read this and yes, there wasn’t a happy ending. But this was an important read and it’s important to really think about these issues. And it’s great that this is happening in YA.
Read my full review here: https://ifthebook.wordpress.com/2018/05/28/a-girl-like-that-by-tanaz-bhathena/
Read my full review here: https://ifthebook.wordpress.com/2018/05/28/a-girl-like-that-by-tanaz-bhathena/
crabbytaco's review against another edition
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Murder, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, and Death of parent
zoemig's review against another edition
3.0
When I received a copy of A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena in the mail, I decided to read it because of the author (born in Mumbai but raised in Riyadh, Jeddah and Toronto) and setting (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). The book begins with sixteen-year-old Zarin, dead in a car crash with eighteen-year-old Porus. The story is then told through a variety of perspectives and flashbacks, leading to the moment of the characters deaths. It's definitely one of those stories where you keep hoping for a happy ending, despite knowing from the beginning how things turned out––but not exactly why.
Despite the bright and cheery looking cover, A Girl Like That is a very dark and emotional book. It deals with a lot of serious issues, and they are handled thoughtfully, but the book as a whole felt a bit scattered and just had a very difficult time keeping my attention. I ended up taking almost 2 months to read the book. That said, I really appreciated the perspective and I felt like I learned a lot about a different culture and life through Zarin's story. There is a lot of complexity to this story, and I really liked that Zarin was not who you might have expected. I'd definitely pick up a future book by Bhathena, whose second novel, The Beauty of the Moment, releases in 2019.
Despite the bright and cheery looking cover, A Girl Like That is a very dark and emotional book. It deals with a lot of serious issues, and they are handled thoughtfully, but the book as a whole felt a bit scattered and just had a very difficult time keeping my attention. I ended up taking almost 2 months to read the book. That said, I really appreciated the perspective and I felt like I learned a lot about a different culture and life through Zarin's story. There is a lot of complexity to this story, and I really liked that Zarin was not who you might have expected. I'd definitely pick up a future book by Bhathena, whose second novel, The Beauty of the Moment, releases in 2019.