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A review by heykellyjensen
A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena
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.