Publisher: Penguin Teen Canada, March 1, 2022

Format: ebook

Pages: 384

Rating: 5/5 stars

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir comes a brilliant, unforgettable, and heart-wrenching contemporary YA novel about family and forgiveness, love and loss, in a sweeping story that crosses generations and continents.

Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.

Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.

Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah’s health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle’s liquor store while hiding the fact that she’s applying to college so she can escape him—and Juniper—forever.

When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

From one of today’s most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness—one that’s both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity. 

My Review:

Thank you Penguin Teen Canada for the copy of this book.
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Read if you like: YA coming of age stories.
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This book follows Salahudin and Noor, two young teens living in California about to graduate from high school, but both are dealing with traumatic events that no child should have to deal with.
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This book deals with a lot. Salahudin is left to deal with his family’s motel after the death of his mother and his fathers alcoholism. Noor is forced to work at her uncles liquor store while hiding the fact that she has applied to colleges in order to escape him.
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Noor and Salahudin’s friendship is rocky. They have grown up together but the book starts after The Fight and I liked how the author used the rest of the book to show how they worked on repairing their relationship.
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We also get a look at the experiences of Salahudin’s parents and Noor as immigrants from Pakistan. They experience brutal racism at the hands of the local people, which is horrific.
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I love how the theme of rage is represented in the book through Salahudin and Noor’s experiences. The writing was beautiful and heartbreaking and I highly recommend this book.
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CW: death of a loved one, alcoholism, racism, sexism, sexual assault, domestic violence, drug use and overdose, police violence and incarceration.