A review by misterintensity
Here to Stay by Sara Farizan

4.0

Bijan just shot the winning basket during the playoffs. However, he didn’t expect to be the subject of an email which went viral which depicted him as a terrorist. Here to Stay covers a lot of ground over the course of its pages. While the main storyline is about how Bijan confronts the Islamophobia of his classmates, there are also plot threads involving romance, cyberbullying, high school cliques, and team building. Farizan does a great job with creating interesting characters with distinct voices and experiences. She really captures the dynamics of high school, including some of the nuances that many writers gloss over. For example, she acknowledges there are high school cliques but even within those cliques some within them are closer to each other than others. That becomes clear when some of Bijan's varsity teammates openly express their hateful feelings toward him. Bijan wants to be an asset to his team during the playoffs but at the same time he knows that some of his teammates and other classmates don't want him around because he is of Middle Eastern descent. The focus is on how the e-mail affects Bijan and the people immediately in his orbit but there's also the mystery of who sent the e-mail that might appeal to those who enjoy mysteries. Bijan and his classmates feel very real; Farizan does an excellent job in making them come alive from Bijan's point of view. Overall, Here to Stay is a strong piece of realistic fiction with enough elements of romance and mystery which is engaging enough that readers will get its multiple lessons without being hit over the head by them.