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Book Reviewed by:A timeless exploration of high-stakes romance, self-discovery, and the lengths we go to love and be loved.
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.
Tanaz Bhathena's debut YA novel, told in flashbacks, gives life to a strong-willed, orphaned Zoroastrian girl living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In a stunning narrative that proves the necessity of more diverse, own-voices young adult fiction, the world of the reader is expanded while also showing so clearly that some things are truly universal...continued
Full Review
(581 words)
(Reviewed by Michelle Anya Anjirbag).
One of the motivating factors for the various conflicts Zarin faces in Tanaz Bhathena's debut YA novel A Girl Like That, is that she is a Zoroastrian - a religion that is far less recognizable than some of the other major world religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, or Hinduism. This is because, though it is one of the oldest monotheistic religions, it is now one of the smallest religions, with a reported 190,000 followers worldwide in 2006.
Zoroastrians worship in fire temples called agiaries which each hold a sacred fire. However, though some have represented Zoroastrianism as fire worship, that is not accurate. Rather, all of the elements are believed to be pure, and fire specifically represents God's light and ...
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