A review by sara_hudson
A Place at the Table by Saadia Faruqi, Laura Shovan

4.0

Told in two voices as written by two authors (like Save Me a Seat and Same Sun Here), the book explores several favorite mglit themes - new kid at school, family financial challenges, kid-of-immigrant, parent mental health, mean girls at school. Somehow, this book takes those tried and true themes and mines new ground. Maybe it is the food - Sara's mother runs a Pakistani catering service - that helps. Also, Elizabeth - the foil to new-kid-daughter-of-immigrants Sara - has her own issues to deal with. Some are different than Sara's (Elizabeth's mother's depression), but some overlap (Elizabeth's family is Jewish and faces some "othering" because of it). They are both a bit quirky and their growing friendship - though not without some difficulties - feels authentic. The "that's when it all went wrong" moment isn't surprising, and the girls got off a little easier than feels true, but it wraps up nicely. And, the brothers and male friend Micah (who I wish got a bit more air time) add a lot to the story.