A Girl Like That
Sixteen-year-old Zarin Wadia is many things: a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a risk taker. She’s also the kind of girl that parents warn their kids to stay away from: a troublemaker whose many romances are the subject of endless gossip at school. You don't want to get involved with a...
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Sixteen-year-old Zarin Wadia is many things: a bright and vivacious student, an orphan, a risk taker. She’s also the kind of girl that parents warn their kids to stay away from: a troublemaker whose many romances are the subject of endless gossip at school. You don't want to get involved with a girl like that, they say. So how is it that eighteen-year-old Porus Dumasia has only ever had eyes for her? And how did Zarin and Porus end up dead in a car together, crashed on the side of a highway in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia? When the religious police arrive on the scene, everything everyone thought they knew about Zarin is questioned. And as her story is pieced together, told through multiple perspectives, it becomes clear that she was far more than just a girl like that. This beautifully written debut novel from Tanaz Bhathena reveals a rich and wonderful new world to readers; tackles complicated issues of race, identity, class, and religion; and paints a portrait of teenage ambition, angst, and alienation that feels both inventive and universal.
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Format: Hardcover
ISBN:
9780374305444 (0374305447)
Publish date: 2018-02-27
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Pages no: 384
Edition language: English
May Contain SpoilersThis 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? Ho...
What can I say about a novel that made me stop and breathe. This was a novel that was more immense than the pages that held its words. It was a novel that threw out the punches over and over again, a fight that never seemed to disappear. It was a novel that was hard to read yet one that was also har...