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by Sonia Patel
From Morris Award finalist Sonia Patel comes a sharply written YA about a girl grappling with a dark, painful secret from her past, perfect for fans of All My Rage and The Way I Used to Be.
It's eighteen-year-old Gita Desai's first year at Stanford, and the fact that she's here and not already married off by her traditional Gujarati parents is a miracle. She's determined to death-grip her good-girl, model student rep all the way to med school, which means no social life or standing out in any way. Should be easy: If there's one thing she's learned from her family, it's how to chup-re—to "shut up," fade into the background. But when childhood memories of her aunt's desertion and her then-uncle's best friend resurface, Gita ends up ditching the books night after night in favor of partying and hooking up with strangers. Still, nothing can stop the little voice growing louder and louder inside her that says something is wrong...And the only way she can burst forward is to stop shutting up about the past.
"Patel, whose own experiences inform this story, infuses Gita's first-person narration with thoughtfulness and humor that make her growing confusion and self-loathing cut deeply. Thankfully, Gita's friends are there to support her when she finally finds her voice...A tough read that's worth the discomfort." —Kirkus Reviews
"This searing 1992-set novel by Patel explores the ways that prolonged abuse can shape behavior...While Gita's journey toward finding her own voice is plagued by male characters who—both intentionally and unconsciously—cause her physical and mental harm, bright spots in the form of her kindhearted older brother and supportive gay peer help to carry the burden." —Publishers Weekly
This information about Gita Desai Is Not Here to Shut Up was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sonia Patel writes out of her experience as a first-generation Indian American born in New York and raised in Hawaii, an experience lushly and brilliantly explored in her debut novel, Rani Patel in Full Effect. Rani received four starred reviews and was a Morris Award finalist and a YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults and Kirkus Reviews' Best Teen Books selection. Her subsequent young adult novels, Jaya and Rasa: A Love Story and Bloody Seoul, both received the In the Margins Book Award. Her short story, "Nothing Feels No Pain," appears in the YA anthology Ab(solutely) Normal. As a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist trained at Stanford University and the University of Hawaii, Patel has spent over twenty years providing individual and family psychotherapy to children, adolescents, and their families. She lives in Honolulu with her husband, and they have two adult children in college.
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