Maya is an Indian-Muslim-American high school senior. I think the book is well-summarized by this excerpt: "My parents' fears shrink my universe to the four walls of this house. The world outside paints us all as terrorists... And all I want is to make movies and kiss a boy." (p. 220) The book was an interesting combination of teen romance, multicultural identity searching, and spotlight on racism.
The first half of the book reads like a romantic comedy. Perpetually-blushing Maya unexpectedly finds herself in a love triangle, torn between Phil, who is white, beautiful, and captain of the football team, and Kareem, an Indian-Muslim-American student at Princeton. People who enjoy these Team Phil vs. Team Kareem type stories would probably find a lot to like in this book, but alas, I am not generally a fan. (Though that didn't stop me from picking Team Kareem.)
As an aspiring filmmaker, Maya dots her narrative and dialogue with film-related terminology and references to movies. At times, it's an effective tool for breaking the awkwardness in a scene or lightening the tension.
There were things I really loved about this book. Mostly, I enjoyed the writing, which was full of colorful metaphors. In reference to the conservatism of her immigrant community, Maya's first-person narrative observes, "some taboos cross oceans, packed tightly into the corners of immigrant baggage, tucked away with packets of masala and memories of home." (p. 9)
I was a little concerned that Maya's parents were too much of a stereotype of conservative immigrant Indian parents, but those worries were mitigated by the existence of Maya's cool aunt Hina, who served as a counter-example.
Admittedly, I felt misled by the quotes of praise from other authors (printed on the back cover) which referred to Maya as a Muslim and completely omitted her Indian identity. For pretty much the first half of the book, most of the diversity portrayed was that of her being Indian. There was a lot of Indian food, Indian clothes, and Indian culture strewn throughout. The fact that she and her family were also Muslim was mostly limited to statements of that fact and joking mentions of not eating pork. We didn't really see how being Muslim affected her day-to-day life.
It wasn't until about halfway through the book that Maya's Muslim-ness came into focus, in the wake of a terrorist attack. This is when the book finally started to get interesting, in my opinion, as Maya navigated her school with all eyes on her.
I appreciated the way the events surrounding the terrorist attack unfolded, alternating between snapshots of the perpetrator and the victims. However, I was bothered by a few passages that seemed contrived to elicit sympathy for the perpetrator. He was given a background story that some might interpret as excusing his actions; he was abused as a child, "troubled" and misunderstood as a teenager. I would have much preferred passages that instead or additionally showed how he might have fallen down a rabbit hole of hate and poor decisions.
I also was not too keen on one scene that I'm sure many readers would probably enjoy from a romance standpoint. Without giving too much away, there's a moment when Phil comes to Maya's rescue, and as romantic as that is, it just crept too much into "white savior" territory for me.
Overall, I think the book could have been better paced. The pure romance first half of the book could have been condensed, and the aftermath of the terrorist attacks could have been extended. Moreover, I felt the book ended much too abruptly after Maya took a stand for her future. There were just so many unanswered questions I had for the time that was glossed over by the epilogue, particularly in regards to Maya's relationship with her parents. So much conflict, so much tension, how did she and her parents deal with it?!
As is typical of multicultural books, foreign words are occasionally interspersed. I felt like I could understand non-English words from context, though I wasn't sure if specific words were Urdu or Hindi.
Finally, this book does include swearing and references to sex, not uncommon for a book rated for teens.
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